Looks similar to crested dog tail but dont think it is.
Its possible its one of those overseas quick growing grasses that the
previous owners sowed to cover the bare patches.
Give the grass a good scarify boxing off the organic matter.
Also apply an autumn feed to restore your ph levels.
Its too late for sowing seed now so wait til March for that or buy a few
turf and dig out the bare areas and just put plugs of turf in.
good luck
wrote in message
oups.com...
Guys

Help please. Am living in NZ having moved from the UK but hopefully you
can add some relevant advise. Grass is Grass!

I've put some images at

http://gedclink.fotopages.com/


Just moved into new house a while ago and eventually got around to
addressing the lawn areas. I. After cutting back the lawn I can now
clearly see about 40 patches of dead grass where the previous owner let

their dog ( a bitch ) pee everywhere. Around these dead patches the
grass appears to have gone mad( which I understand was due to the
nitrogen in the p acting as a mild fertiliser) and I have posted a
couple of pics.

However, it doesn't appear to be normal grass !
It's very elongated, almost wiry and grows sideways over the holes left
in
the grass.. I didn't actually see the holes initially as I wasn't
scalping the grass due to hot summers etc. Once I cut the grass back to
a short level it was very obvious that a huge part of the lawn is
infested with this " wild grass"? Long stalks that are almost woody
with broad leaves coming off higher up. At the top there was small
seeds.

When I dethatched today, it brought up stalks from 3 to 6 inches long
all over the place. It appeared large areas of the grass were made up
of
this long stemmed grass, not the nice stuff I initially thought. It
lies down flat and generally appeared to grow from the edge of old dog
p damage across the hole that was burnt into the grass.

Given the scope of the problem I was keen to hear your thoughts and
advice on wether I should kill off the grass towards the end of summer
and re-seed or will I get good results working with what I have. Some
of the photos will show the problem over a small area. This is
magnified across the whole lawn.

I am looking at Hydro turf which is seed sprayed onto the bare earth.
Its held in a solution of wood fibre and fertiliser and apparently has
a higher hit rate than normal seedin. Any thoughts on this as opposed
to normal seeding. Cost sits between normal grass seed and readylawn.

Thanks for any advice. Please ask anything you need from the photos.