On Wednesday, May 7, 2014 11:18:40 AM UTC-4, Bob F wrote:
wrote:

On Wednesday, April 30, 2014 3:37:26 PM UTC-4, MattC76 wrote:

Dear All,



I have a bit of a problem with my lawn! 4 weeks ago it was looking



really green and lush as you can see in the picture. I had mowed it

on a



high setting as recommended for the first few mows of the season -

about



1 notch from top on my Honda IZY which I think is about 6cm. We've

had



good weather here so I started gradually lowering the height to what

I



normally cut it in the summer which is 3 notches from lowest on the



Honda (about 4cm). And you can see the result! I've posted some



close-ups. Basically it's very coarse, brown a bit like straw. I

raked



some of the bad areas to get this long coarse grass to stand up and

then



mowed again. Studying the whole lawn it seems that the majority is

made



up of this coarse grass - there were a lot of seed heads on it

earlier



in spring all over the lawn.





You should have mowed it short back then to prevent the undesirable

grass/weed from going to seed. And put down pre-emergent crabgrass

control, assuming they have that in the UK. It will prevent most

anything from germinating and that could work to eliminate it, if it's

an annual. But, IDK what exactly it is that you have there. It looks

like something that has completed it's lifecycle and is dying. What

happens later in summer?



But if it's a grass, it's a real problem. There are very few

herbicides that will kill weed type grass without also killing the

desireable grass. And the few that are, only work with a very few

undesirable grasses and aren't available to homeowners.



I'd try to get someone locally to identify it for you and then you

can google for possible solutions.



He let it grow long and healthy, then scalped it, leaving nothing but stem -

most of the leaves are gone. What can he expect? If he lets it grow long again,

it'll gradually begin to look good again. Cutting a long lawn really short will

just end up this way.

I looked at the pic again and you may be right. I'm not
sure that there is any "coarse grass" infestation problem.
It looks as you say, more like a dying section of grass that's
the same as the rest of the grass. I also didn't pay close
attention to the 4cm part. Cutting most grasses down that short
isn't a good idea. It should be min 2x that, IMO.