How to Repair Bare Spots in Your Lawn

Bare spots in a lawn can be frustrating. It can seem like no matter how much you try to look after your grass, it can become covered in unsightly bald patches that feel impossible to combat.

While you might not have a picture-perfect lawn immediately, it might not be long until you do. Sometimes, you just have to take some of the steps below:

Step 1: Know Why You Have Bare Spots

It can be a losing battle if you repair bare spots in your lawn before you determine why they’re there. Even if you solve the problem, the bare spots might appear before long since you haven’t identified and rectified the cause!

Unfortunately, a number of things can be at the root of the problem, pardon the pun. We’ll cover a small amount of detail about these below.

Overuse

If your lawns are a playground for pets and children, overuse can be a common cause of bare spots. You might even experience bald spots from lawn furniture and lawn games.

Frequently walking or running on the lawn can result in soil compaction. When the soil is pushed down flat, the grass roots can’t access the nutrients, sunshine, and oxygen they need. Without those vital nutrients, the grass can die and leave behind those very noticeable bald spots.

Diseases

Our lawns can be susceptible to many different lawn diseases when they aren’t in the best health, like red thread, brown patch, and dollar spot. Red thread is, as the name suggests, red threads. Your lawn can have irregular patches of dead grass with red/pink colouring caused by the disease’s fungal spores.

Brown patch is also quite common. It’s a fungal disease that turns your grass brown, with the roots appearing black. Dollar spot is another one to look out for. It presents as small brown dollar-sized patches on your lawn and is common from spring to autumn.

Pests

Just as you can encounter pests in your garden, you can also find them in your lawn. Some of the most common ones are caterpillars and grass grubs.  

Pet Urine

As much as we love our four-legged friends, they can devastate the average lawn. The nitrogen in their urine can kill off grass.

Deficiencies

A high pH, a low pH, and not enough nutrients can take its toll on a lawn. Lawn becomes weakened until bare spots start to form.

Step 2. Solve the Problem

Once you’ve identified the cause of your lawn woes, you can put a plan in place to address it. This should happen before you take steps to repair your lawn. For example, you might buy products from your local garden store to eliminate grass grub or water down your dogs’ urine when they use the grass as a toilet.

Step 3. Prepare the Bald Patches

Preparing your lawn’s bald patches for new grass is an essential step in the process. Rake the dead grass from the bald area and use a small fork or similar tool to loosen the soil’s top layer. Water the patch until the soil is wet.

If you notice that the bald area is lower than the rest of your lawn, you can place a layer of topsoil on the top. Finally, rake the soil to level it out and spread some over the edges into the healthy grass so new growth won’t be so obvious.

Step 4: Sow Your Grass Seed

Visit your local garden store and find grass seed to match your lawn. If you’re unsure what type of grass you have, take a picture of it to take with you. Your local garden expert will do their best to identify it and provide you with the right seed.

You can then scatter the seed onto the bald patches and ensure the whole area is covered. Finally, rake it gently to mix it into the soil and water it with a watering can or soft sprinkler.

Step 5: Help Your Seeds Grow

Grass grows without much help, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need your support during its growth process. You’ll need to deeply water the bald patches every 2-3 days, making sure not to wash the seeds away.

During its growth phase, it’s also important to fence off the area to stop pets and children from disturbing the seeds. As the grass grows, you’ll be able to start mowing it once it’s around five centimetres tall.

Let Someone Else Take Care Of Your Lawns

Lawn care can be time-consuming. Whether you lack time, patience, or knowledge, there’s no harm in outsourcing this job to someone else! You can hire a lawn mowing and gardening expert to take care of everything from lawn mowing and gardening to hedge trimming and everything in between.