Richard Elsmore wrote:

Hello,
Our garden and house is about 3 years old nearly and we have mostly had
a good lawn. But at the moment the grass is dying at the end and also
along one edge and around the base of a tree where there is a slight
dip. It appears quite wet so I wonder if the problem is poor drainage.
The lawn is about 5m x 15m. Can anyone offer advise to improve the
grass. Most of our plants appear fine its just the grass that has an
issue. There is also moss in some areas which I would think would
suggest a constantly wet area.
Many Thanks

this is very complicated to analyze without seeing it.

3 years is about normal for a lot of problems to
show up.

was the area sod or seeded with the grass?

how have you been maintaining the area? do you remove
the clippings? how high have you been cutting it and
how often?

is the tree blocking more light than it used to?

it could be that the tree is a species which is
toxic to grass (is it a black walnut)?

it could be that the grass isn't suited to the wet
areas. another grass species might do ok.

however, that all said, i'd level the low spots to
spread the water out more, then reseed a variety of
grasses into the entire area to increase diversity
thin layers of compost mixed with the grass seed
would likely help for the bare areas.

moss isn't a sure sign of any one thing other than
itself. there can be many reasons why an area is
compacted and barren. water running off and taking
the organic materials with it. too much traffic
when it was wet. too much shade. etc. in many cases
there are better species to put in such an area than
grasses.

we've got a few areas that are fairly soggy almost
all the time and grasses grow there without trouble.
no moss.


songbird