On Aug 11, 8:13*am, Pat Kiewicz wrote:
puppilup said:
I posted a thread to this site a few weeks ago "New Turf Lawn Dying? -
Help please" and sadly no reply yet.
http://tinyurl.com/3ttk6xm
I am in the UK, but good lawn advice must surely apply the world over.
Can any of you good experts please, please share some of your lawn
recovery experience with me ?!
Can someone please help with my new 6 week old turf lawn which is not
recovering despite laying, watering and mowing exactly as recommended by
the UK renowned turf supplier Rowlawn.
Did they tell you to mow it to 1 1/2 inches (as mentioned in your 3rd photo)? *
In summer, for cool-weather grasses, 3 or even 3 1/2 inches is better for the grass. *
Except, .....I made one big
mistake.......... I went on holiday! In those 2 weeks it rained a lot
and grew too long (6"). When it was cut back all the lush green grass
disappeared and I am now left with a thin, sparse and dead looking lawn.
You cut back too much at once. *Sometimes your are forced to cut back more
than you would like, but you should have set your mower at its very highest
setting so as to leave as much of the grass blades as you could. Ideally, you don't
want to cut away more than 1/3 of the grass blade at any cutting.
Next time you go on holiday, try to arrange for someone to cut the lawn at
least once while you are gone!
In the last 2 weeks since that it has showed little signs of recovering.
Am I being too impatient and it will recover as Rowlawn say?
Cross your fingers, and wait, and raise your mowing height. *You can
drop it again as you move into fall. Maybe give it a *very* light fertilization.
This is all explained in depth in the URL link above to my original
thread. The pictures below give a good indication of the issue. Your
help is much needed and appreciated. Many thanks. Puppilup
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Pat in Plymouth MI
"Yes, swooping is bad."
email valid but not regularly monitored
First, good job of documenting and explaining the problem. Here are
my thoughts. I agree with the above advice that you should not have
cut it so short. The general advice is to remove 1/3 of the grass at
a
time. That doesn't mean you can cut 1/3 today, then another 1/3
in two days. I'd do that over a period of at least a couple weeks.
You don't say what specific kind of grass it is, but for cool season
grasses, leaving it at 3" is fine and preferable to cutting it too
short.
I would not go below 2 1/2" What you did probably shocked the
grass.
However from the photos of the damage I suspect the bigger
problem now may be fungus. That one picture that appears to
show a cob web like substance on the grass that is dying. That
is a classic sign of some of the fungus diseases that can attack
and kill turf quickly. They generally thrive in conditions of high
moisture, heat, and nitrogen. I'd immediately go out and buy
a bag of fungicide and apply it. If it is fungus, it could make
the difference between saving and losing the new lawn. IF
not, it's not that expensive in the grand scheme.
Also, I'd say that at 6 weeks you should be watering about
once every two days. You should be doing it either early AM, like
4am so that it gets done before the sun gets hot enough to
evaporate the water. That will allow you to save water.
Watering during the early part of the day is fine too, but more
water is lost. The one thing you don NOT want to do is
water it at 8PM and leave it wet all night long. That provides
the environment for fungus and disease. Watering in the
AM lets it dry out quickly and minimzes the time it is wet.
If you're overwatering, which is what most people do when
they see turf that isn't doing well, that will just make fungus
problems worse. And cutting the grass so short so quickly
shocked it, which leaves it more susceptible as well.
I'd hold off on any additional fertilizer as excess nitrogen
just makes these problems worse. If you have a place
that can test your soil, I'd do that. Often new topsoil has
a PH that is way off and needs to be adjusted. There
are kits available that you can use to test your own but
if there is some agricultural service, like the govt, available,
they are a better choice and likely to be more accurate.
Good luck.