How Do You Bring a Dead Lawn Back to Life?

 


Maybe you’ve got a new-to-you lawn that looks like something from a haunted house. Maybe your life is complicated and caring for your grass was the last thing on your mind. Whatever the reason, now you’re ready to get back at it and bring that pathetic lawn back to its gorgeous, green, glory. Where do you start? 


Dormant Isn’t Dead


There are good reasons why we use grass on our lawns. Aside from its soft texture and beautiful looks, it’s a hearty little plant. Some people might see a dormant lawn and call it a dead one. Who could blame them? A dormant lawn looks brown, and we associate that color with dead grass. 


A lawn will go into dormancy as a way to save itself, a kind of hibernation against harsh climate shifts. These climate shifts can happen because of a change in seasons (extreme cold in winter and blazing sunlight and heat in summer), or temporary issues like droughts. 


Even so, a badly-treated or highly-neglected lawn is still susceptible to death. Though dormancy is far easier to correct than a terminal diagnosis, neither is a permanent state, and you can get your green grass back. It just takes time, and a little (or a lot) of work.


How Do I Tell if My Lawn is Dead? 


There’s one simple test that will probably give you all the information you need, called the tug test. If a patch of brown grass comes up when you pull on it, that is a sure sign that the grass is dead. A dormant grass plant still has a root system beneath the brown leaf, just waiting for the chance to spring back to life. A dead lawn has no such root system, and there’s nothing holding that brown blade in. 


It’s also rare that an entire lawn dies at once. Typically, you’ll find that large patches of the grass will die off before others. This is not true for most dormant lawns, as they will appear almost entirely brown all at the same time. If you notice your lawn is patched with big brown areas of dead grass, give those areas a tug. 


For a Dormant Lawn: Cut and Water the Grass


This is not just the first step in reviving a dead lawn, it’s also a first step in figuring out if it’s actually dead and not just sleeping. As long as you’re not in the middle of winter or the dog days of summer, you’ll see a difference. Give the lawn a mow (it’s okay to start small, with just a patch of what you suspect is dormant lawn), and then water it. If it's dormant, you’ll see a noticeable difference within a few days, and you can try the same treatment to the rest of the dry spots. 


For a Dead Lawn: Start Fresh


If you’ve determined that your lawn is probably dead, you need to figure out why. If it’s a disease or parasitic infection, you’ll need to acquire the proper chemicals. A grub infestation presents a number of challenges that require a different response than, say, an excess of salt from a nearby road or sidewalk. 


No matter how it died, getting it back on its feet (or its roots) is a matter of reseeding or even resodding the top layer, depending on how fast you want to get your green grass back, how much time you have to spend on tending it, and whether the factors that killed it the first time are likely to come back and ruin all of your hard work. 


Dealing with a dead or even dormant lawn might seem daunting, but it could just be a matter of mowing and watering it, and using our recommended lawn care tips. Also, it might be time to call in a professional like a NaturaLawn of America.

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