Dead Patches

[Nick Buick]

Hey guys, this site is amazing, exactly what I've been searching for. I have a question about my lawn.

It's green couch turf, laid about 18 months ago on quite clayish soil. For the first while it looked amazing, super green and thick. But over the last 4-6 months its started to die off in areas and now it's looking really dead. It has entire patches that are just brown thatch with no grass at all and slowly blended across the lawn to reasonably green sections but still lots of brown thatch coming through. Also has lots of mushrooms popping up in various areas, but not in rings like Fairy Ring... just around the place. In the shaded areas its particularly dead, just totally dead patches blending from the shady areas out to the middle... it doesn't get too much traffic, I don't water it much but the soil is pretty damp from heavy due and rain, and other sections are pretty green so it can't be lack of water, I fertilize it every 3 months with lawn builder as per direction (every 3 months it says).

here's some photos of the dead patches and other areas.



Here's the black spores the mushrooms drop
Odly, some of the mushrooms grow where the lawn is all dead, others grow where there's no dead lawn - so not sure if it's a coincidence or not... if only I knew the problem I could fix it.


Do you think it's fungus / fairy rings? Or do I need to fertilize more? Or does it need dethatching? Or airating? I don't know which treatment to give it to make it nice and green again. I just oversowed with ryegrass incase it was simply winter die-off in the couch. I'm in South East QLD.

Thanks for any advice anyone can offer

[Steve]

Hi Nick,

I'll try and go through your points as best I can;

I don't like having mushrooms in the lawn for several reasons, I would personally remove these by digging them out of the soil, fill in the holes and letting the lawn repair itself.

Shade and Couch never mix, Couch requires the highest level of shade of all grasses, you will need to remove what's causing the shade, or plant a new grass type such as Buffalo, or put a garden bed in the area, or grow some sort of low growing ground cover which will blend with the lawn where shade meets sun. Dichondra repens is excellent for this purpose.

As for the brown thatchy appearance, this could be somewhat more tricky to figure out…

Couch shouldn't die off in Winter, and being in Qld I couldn't see it ever getting cold enough that Couch would only ever enter into a light dormancy in the cooler months, so a green Couch lawn over Winter shouldn't be a problem.

I could start by asking if the lawn received regular fertilising?
Nutrients are vital to lawns, are often over-looked, and will result in poor lawn health if regular fertilising isn't done.

Was the lawn regularly mowed during the growing season?
Not mowing regularly will frequently create a scalped lawn. If the lawn was left to get too long between cuts then the resulting scalping can often kill the lawn - it will grow back but you'll have to wait until the growing season begins again.

What type of soil do you have?
If it's retaining water or is of poor quality, these factors will eventually catch up with a lawn and affect it's health.

I hope that helps to get you started at some things to look at. Feel free to add some more info if you want, but it may just be a case of waiting until the Spring arrives and seeing how the lawn responds with good lawn care, fertilising and regular mowing.

[Nick Buick]

Thanks so much for your advice, I wish you guys were based in Brisbane, If I could find a lawn consultant here I'd gladly hire them to help. I don't want a mower-man (I love to mow) just someone who can advise... but whoever they are, they don't seem to know much about Google .

It's shade in winter, in summer the bushes don't cast shadow as much. I was hoping perennial rye grass would make a good companion grass for the couch in the shady areas? What do you think? I just find buffalo so ugly with it's big thick blades.

Soil very clayish... I've tried sprinkling rocks of Gypsum all over the top about a year ago but it didn't seem to do much. My greatest concern was fungus, if you don't think it's fairy rings or brown patch, that's good.

Knowing it's not fungus, here's my plan then: Get the soil aerated now, mix lots of Gypsum into the plug holes to get it right down into the soil and break it up more this time instead of sitting on the surface, fertilize using the products suggested on this site at exact times suggested on this site, in September I'll top dress with very sandy soil and oversow more perennial rye seed at that stage and cut back shade.
I just bought a bonner scott reel mower - the ground is super-flat, my goal is a bowling green by December... Think the above plan will get it there? Thanks again!!

[Steve]

Hi Nick,

Funnily enough, this site was only ever intended as a source of advice for my own clients - as a way to add some extra value to their service. It just all got out of hand during it's development.

As for your lawn problems, I'm not ruling out any type of lawn disease in the sunny areas, it's just very difficult to analyse such things on a computer screen. So the best course of action would be to concentrate on good lawn care practices and waiting until Spring to see how the lawn repairs itself, and then look at other possible causes if necessary.

If you want someone to look at the lawn then the best you could hope for is finding a professional Spraying Contractor or a garden / lawn Contractor - preferably with horticultural qualifications. The problem with the whole weed spraying industry is that the license involved only covers chemical handling, so a bloke can go and take the course and come out a few hours later with a license - without knowing anything about weeds or diseases or how to treat them - so always best to choose these guys carefully.

If you don't like Buffalo then Durban grass is available in Qld. and this is excellent in the shade, you'll probably find the Ryegrass will quickly die off in Summer. Also remember to mow higher in shady areas too!

As for the lawn coring / Gypsum / fertilsing idea - excellent. If you've got continuing problems then this may need to be done every Spring.or every second year as part of your lawn care maintenance - Wetting Agents are cheap and useful in these situations too!

Good luck!

[Nick Buick]

Legend, thanks mate, just got back from Bunnings then with a bulk load of gypsum, lawn fertilizer, and a fork to airate with, the more I think about it, the more I think the clay soil is way too hard and compacted... Will post some shots in a few months if things improve... and will check out the Durbin Grass too... thanks again!

[Nick Buick]

I think I've found the problem .

I started aerating... The soil is very clayish its hard as hell and full of rocks. I couldn't get the fork in more than 5 centimeters, even after a very heavy watering... I even took a hammer and tried to hammer the fork into the ground to get it down just 15cm and even hitting it as hard as I could, it just started to bend the steel prongs. I'm assuming this is no good for lawn?

I've ordered a bob-cat to come on Tuesday to remove an entire top foot of soil (if you can call it that) from the entire yard, grass and all, and 'basin' the ground into a central drainage trench in which I will place an underground drainage pipe (the black one with the holes cut in it) which I'll cover in gravel, then I've ordered a few tons of brickies loam which I'll spread across the entire yard to replace the top 30cm of garbage the bobcat will remove. I'll scrim it flat, and re-seed it with something... I'm thinking either Bentgrass or Perenial Rye (I want a really fine lawn).

My goal is to start again fresh, and set up the perfect soil and drainage structure for a bowling-green quality lawn from the ground up. I don't care how much it costs or how much work, I just want it to be perfect - the one thing i don't want to do is go to all this effort and have wasted my time, so if you can think of any improvements to the above strategy, please let me know. Oh dear Steve, I think I'm getting obsessed . Thanks again for the inspiration..

[Nigel Ruck]

Hey Nick, I've been looking up some turf suppliers in Brisbane who offer lawn care advice as well as lawn supplies and an installation service. You should be able to find them just by typing them directly into google.

Don't discount buffalo grass too quickly - it is worth looking into an improved (soft-leaf) variety - it has finer, softer blades & is shade tolerant & resistant to fungus attack.

Have a great one!

Nigel

[Steve]

Hi Nick,

I've been meaning to get back to you - but life's just been out of hand hectic of late!

Sounds like you're doing all the right things - that soil sounds dreadful.

Personally, I would think twice about planting a Cool Season grass type in Qld, especially Rye which is usually better suited to blending with other grasses. But to qualify and exempt myself from that statement - I don't live in Qld - so don't put great faith in these words - the conditions may be OK, but you would have to check for yourself at the local level with some turf suppliers and get some input from them about the best grass types for your area.

Just my last 2 cents - have you considered other lawn types like Zoysia? and apart from the straight sand base, sandy loam is often a good choice as a lawn base.

LOL - no need to tell me about being obsessed with lawns - I'm getting to the stage of thinking about and working with turf 24 hours a day for the past couple of years - you'll know you have a problem when you start having dreams about grass and weeds…

Best of luck

[Temora140]

Hi Nick,

If it's not to late I would change my soil from brickies sand to a sandy loam soil. Brickies sand has no soil at all and you will have to water, and fertilise all the time, with a sandy loam it will hold a bit of water and you will not have to fertilise as much either. It's up to you tho. I would get some Legend couch, Greenlees couch or as Steve suggested some Zoysia. Bentgrass is better in cold climates and will probably give you nothing but grief with disease and need for water. Bentgrass needs lots of water on hot days.
What you intend to do is great, good luck with it.
Cheers David