Grass goes brown

mf21212

Hi Guys, 

Ive been having trouble with my lawn. I have tried applying weed + feed and the lawn goes a beautiful dark green for around 2 months and then brown patches start to reappear, all maybe 6ft x 6ft type size. They can be made to go away again by applying weed and feed but what is the underlying problem here? I don't really want to be feeding the lawn every 2 months surely? Any ideas?

Morgan

Fairygirl

Is there something under the lawn Morgan?

If it's happening in a regular patch in the same areas, it suggests an underlying issue. Old foundations, or a lump of concrete, or a path - something like that. There isn't enough nourishment in those areas for the grass to thrive. Have you tried sticking a garden fork down into the ground to see if there's a solid barrier?

mf21212

To be honest I'm not 100% sure if its in the same area every time. I think some areas go brown in 2 months others take 3-4 months. The house is a new build and has the usual problem that the builders have buried a lot of rubble under the garden but i would say there is 6-9 inches of "ok" quality soil before you hit the old foundations of what there used to be. 

Is there an easy solution to this? I guess I could dig up the affected areas and replace the soil with new soil? 6-9 inches should be enough soil right?

Fairygirl

That should be plenty. It is a common issue in new builds unfortunately. A combination of rubbish that you can't see and poor drainage is often the case. 

It depends how big a job it is to start digging and replacing etc. The alternatives are :  add some topsoil and make the lawn higher (you'd need something to retain it) then reseed, or remove everything, including any rubble or other rubbish, and improve the whole area before returfing or reseeding, but again, it depends on how much time , effort and money you have, as well as what else surrounds the lawn. 

Perhaps you could look at the worst bit - lift a bit of turf and keep it well watered and out of sun, then have a dig around. My concern would be that you'll not be able to lay that again successfully, but it might let you see what the problem is under there.