Not sure why our grass just doesn’t grow. It’s so patchy, and the empty areas use to be trees we cut down 3 years ago. We added grass seed every year, we’ve tried in the fall and spring and it doesn’t do much. We also have these weird stripes across the lawn. We don’t add fertilizer just grass and top soil. Any advice? We live in southeastern CT
Edit: we use Scott’s brand sun and shade mix. We haven’t used fertilizer. Would appreciate any recommendations on that as well.
by lalala12389
22 Comments
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Too much shade
Have you put down any fertilizer or top soil? How often do you water? What seed do you use?
In order to figure out what’s going on, those details would be helpful.
Re: your edit. Have a soil test done.
You gotta fertilize if you want results.
Ever seen a kid eat sugar for the first time? That’d be your lawn if you fertilized.
You can’t just add seed and expect it to be great, you have to use selective herbicide and fertilize for it to look good
I bet those trees are shading too much
NOT a landscape pro here – so take this advice with a grain of salt….But, I did some serious research this year and had huge success, like our lawn is starting to look super “lush”, but it took some sweat to achieve. A lot depends on your region, but it looks like your soil may be compacted and benefit from de-thatching and aerating! Could be too late for this but worth a try maybe! We just used a regular rake and a manual aerator, hence the sweat!
Aerate. Probably have compacted soil.
If that were mine, I’d start over with better seed in properly prepared ground, and the proper nutrients. You can also overseed for several years with continual nutrient additions, too.
I’m much farther South in NC, but I like cool season lawns and yours wouldn’t use much of a different approach to what I did: https://www.reddit.com/user/digitect/comments/1se5czk/lawn_recommendation_zone_8ish_nc/
Multiple problems:
1. The grass is not growing over the stumps from the trees because they were not ground far enough down into the ground. As they break down, they will consume all of the N in the area above them and prevent anything from growing for years. The only fix is to grind them down farther and replace the soil above them.
2. The trees you have remaining could be allelopathic, meaning they release poison that prevents other plants from growing. You need to research your trees and figure out if they do this or not.
3. Scotts is trash, the Wal Mart of lawn care, you are using trash seed that is probably 90% weeds and 10% something else. You need to get fresh quality seed from a quality grower if you want results. I never recommend Scotts anything.
4. How are you preparing the ground for seeding? You need to scalp the existing grass as low as possible, scarify the ground, broadcast the seed, roll it in, add starter fert, then water daily or multiple times a day until germination.
5. What is your irrigation plan? If you are not putting down 1-1.5″/wk in water during the growing season your grass will not flourish.
6. Adding topsoil is a waste of money and time, it also brings in new weed seeds and resets the biological makeup of the soil to whatever the new topsoil is. Stop adding topsoil, make the soil you already have as healthy as possible by core aerating, getting a soil test, amending based on the results of the soil test, etc.
7. Research the proper time of the year to plant your chosen turfgrass, you mentioned fall and spring, those are opposites, you need to research your chosen seed (not Scotts), read up on the conditions necessary for optimal germination and plan accordingly. I use [Greencast to track soil temps and to determine](https://www.greencastonline.com/tools/soil-temperature) the optimal time of year for turf establishment. The current soil temps need to be optimal as well as the projected soil temps and duration of growing season remaining.
If you follow these simple steps you could have a lush lawn within 30-45 days since northern grasses germinate and grow much faster than ours down here in the south.
Your yard is hungry for nutrients.
Gotta feed it fertilizer.
Instead of top soil, try topping with compost.
Aerate and cut high.
Stop wasting money on seed if you’re not going to feed.
[For $15 UConn will tell you exactly how deficient your soil is](https://soiltesting.cahnr.uconn.edu/price/), but given your years of failing I’m going to guess you can throw down any regionally appropriate Scotts blend and see results.
Just like I tell everyone else, feed it until your satisfied then find a balance of effort and satisfaction to maintain it.
Looks like your spreader over lapped and put down to much fertilizer and burned the grass. See the yellow stripes
What kind of trees did you have? Black walnuts will continue to destroy the ground for years after they’re gone
Mow it short, aerate, throw some seed around, top dress with compost. Keep it damp if you arent getting rain. Adding come white clove seed when you spread the grass seed can help give the lawn some biodiversity and the clover will help add nitrogen.
Scarify the entire area, fresh seed, in August, water.
Aerate and mow it close a few times, then I like a low nitrogen fert, can up the nitro if you need to, but hard to go back the other way, something like a 6-24-24 would be my call first, then you can add a X-0-0 later if you need it. Water those stump wounds and keep em wet, they will rot out MUCH faster if you do, fill in the holes when they go missing with a decent topsoil if possible. You mentioned you did a soil test, wait a bit and do another one if you can, Ag lime can work wonders sometimes.
“We don’t add fertilizer”
End thread.