turfgrass

yellow haylike lawn

yellow haylike lawn

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MAUREEN – posted 07 September 2003 18:08

Hi: I have a brown lawn problem. In the summer months, my lawn is dark green, carpetlike. Come fall, my lawn turns yellow-brown like straw. I do not know what type of lawn I have but I do have strong travelling roots underneath. I live in Southern Connecticut. My lawn will stay hay-like until Spring. Then it turns dark green again and with a lot of watering, it will stay that way until October. I do fertilize three times a year and admit to recently trying lime at the advise of a frient. I was told it would sweeten the soil. I have never had any professional tests done on my lawn but am anxious to find out more about it. Now that fall is near, I look outside every morning waiting to see the green lawn transform to hay. Note: In the winter months, I can pull out handfuls of hay easily and underneath where I pulled it out, it looks like root rot. PLEASE HELP!

redbird – posted 10 September 2003 09:01

You have a warm season grass: bermuda, st. augustine, bahia, zoysia, centipede – or some other similar variety. It is doing what nature intended. The winter browning is part of it’s dormant cycle. This is an accepted fact of life in the south (you do not list your location), due to the fact that cool season grasses (rye, fescue, bluegrass, etc.) do not fare well in intense heat/drought.

You can either accept it as natural or attempt to eradicate your lawn and establish a cool season grass. Be warned – warm season grasses are notoriously difficult to eradicate (and can only be killed with herbicide during their active (green) phase) and have a habit of coming back up in the middle of your cool season grass – this leads to a patchwork brown/green lawn in the winter. If you are in a transitional zone (ask a local nursery/sod dealer) where either a warm or cool season grass will work, and you want to eradicate your lawn, kill it thoroughly before you re-seed or sod. Use round-up, wait 10 days to spray new sprouts, use round-up again, wait a week, rototill, wait ten days to spray new sprouts, wait at least 7 – 14 days from your final round-up application to re-seed or sod.

Note – I use spectracide weed/grass killer instead of round-up (it’s cheaper) and it works very well – just buy the concentrate and dilute it at the STRONGEST recommended level. As stated before, warm season grasses can be extremely difficult to kill.

Good luck.

Mike

MAUREEN – posted 10 September 2003 18:33

Mike:Thank you for your response. In my post, I only stated that I waas from Southern Connecticut. It’s actually East Haven. About 5 miles from the shoreline. Thanks for the information. I now understand that I have a “seasonal” grass. When I originally moved in, the lawn was dark green. It was July. That October, it was yellow straw. I thought I did something wrong. My neighbor told me it was the first year that my lawn ever looked like that. He has lived across the street 40 years. He told me I had a fungus or Grubs. I thought he was wrong because there is no obvious damage in the summer. It definitely sounds like you hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, I think eventually I will have to do as you said and plant new sod or seed. I thank you for helping me with something that my local Agway couldn’t even help me with. Maureen

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