Reasons for spots on your lawn
For many gardeners, a luscious, healthy, green lawn is their pride and joy. So when your lawn becomes patchy with coloured spots, it can become disheartening. Read on to find out what causes spots on your lawn and how you can treat them effectively.
Fertilizer/Chemicals
If you have spots on your lawn it does not necessarily have to be a fungus. This could also be caused by a wrongly used fertilizer or other chemical substances.
An unevenly applied fertilizer can increase stains on the lawn. This is shown by variously green shades. Midday sun could be another factor of causing yellow spots. If the fertilizer was not rinsed well in the ground it will burn the lawn.
Maybe you have spilled some fertilizer while filling it in a spreader and you have not removed it sufficiently. That could also be an area where brown spots appear – the grass dies because of the fertilizer overdose. Equally, chemicals like engine oil or petrol could cause the same effect. Just one drop is enough to harm the sensitive soil. Because of that you should always make sure to stand on a firm, impermeable ground and to try not to spill anything. Chemicals do not just harm your lawn but also the whole environment.
If a point above should be the reason of your spots, you can easily remedy the bare spots by reseeding grass.
Fungal infestation
Fungi can cause spots with different colours like yellow, brown or white. They especially spread when the lawn is charged by frost, heat, stress and a long-lasting wet weather. Without accurate analysis you can often just speculate what kind of fungus you need to deal with. However, there are some general rules:
- grey/white spots: Pink snow mould (Microdochium nivale), Powdery mildew (Blumeria graminis)
- yellow spots: Dollar Spot (Sclerotinia homoeocarpa), Take-all (Ophiobolus graminis)
- brown spots: red thread (Laetisaria fuciformis)
Desiccation
If your lawn gets too little water during dry summer months, individual spots or even whole areas might die. If this is the case, your lawn will need a reseeding in the next season since the grass cannot regenerate itself.
