Lawn Newbie needs help
 

Guys

Posting from New Zealand so our springtime ends at start december and
autumn kicks in around Feb. These are our growing seasons ( apparently
) as I moved from the UK last year.

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 and I have posted a couple of pics. It's
very elongated, almost wiry and grows sideways over the holes left in
the grass..

When I dethatched today, it brought up stalks from 3 to 6 inches long
all over the place!! I am talking around 5 metre square areas covered
in the stuff. It appeared large areas of the grass were made up of
this long stemmed grass, not the nice stuff I initially thought.

The majority of the grass generally appears rather "rough" in texture.
I suspect as with most newer properties in NZ it is readylawn put down
around 4 years ago. I have also enclosed a picture of a couple of small
areas.

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.

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