What to Do About Ugly, Thin, or Bare Spots in Your Lawn

There are some key places you don’t want thin or bare spots:

• Your head
• Your pizza
• Your lawn

The first two you’ll need to take up with your hairstylist and your pizzeria.

When it comes to your lawn, take charge with these tips.

Bare Spots in Your Lawn: What’s the Deal?

There’s no one cause for dead or bare spots in your lawn.

A number of things could be going on out there:

• Fungus
• Compacted soil
• Pet urine
• Heavy foot traffic
• Infestations by grubs or other pests

Dead Spots in Your Lawn: Don’t Freak Out

It’s easy to panic about bare, yellow, or dead spots in your lawn.
Sometimes, you can fix them.

Aeration and seeding can be your best friend here.

It’s possible your lawn can’t breathe.

When your soil becomes compacted, your lawn is gasping for air. Its roots can't take in water or nutrients, which weakens your turf and opens the door for disease and weeds.

Lawn aeration uses a machine to pull out plugs of soil, creating spaces so that air and water can penetrate, which leads to healthier roots.

Lawn aeration also helps break down thatch, that layer of dead grass and stems that sits between the grass blades and the soil.

Aeration is typically followed by overseeding, as the holes created by aeration are perfect new homes for the grass seed.

A good aeration and seeding can do wonders for a struggling lawn.

Yellow Spots in Your Lawn? Could be Fungus

Yellow or brown spots in your lawn could mean a lawn fungus.

The good news is, lawn fungus often clears up itself if you’re patient. And the grass typically comes back on its own after the fungus disappears.

The other good news is there are a few things you can do to prevent lawn disease in the first place, with proper mowing, watering, and fertilizing.

A healthy lawn is better equipped for trauma like summer lawn diseases.

Here are some tips:

• Fertilize your lawn well in the fall and spring so your lawn is healthy and has a better chance of surviving lawn fungus.
• Aeration, aeration, aeration. You want to reduce compaction and improve your lawn’s drainage.
• Don’t water too often — you don’t want your lawn to be too wet.
• Keep your grass height between 3 and 4 inches and avoid mowing during wet weather.
• Water early in the day, before sunrise, so your lawn has time to fully dry before evening.

Feed Bald Spots in Your Lawn with Fertilizer

Your lawn won’t thrive if it’s hungry.

A good fertilizer program can help bring it back to life.

Always opt for granular lawn fertilizer, which is more expensive than the more common liquid stuff, but it breaks down slowly, giving you consistent benefits from fertilization.

Ideally, it will also contain organic nutrients to promote healthy soil, too.

You’ll get professional-grade organic-based formulations of granular fertilizer with RainMaster.

How to Fix Lawn Bare Spots

A proper seeding with quality grass seed can often do the trick to fill in the occasional lawn bare spot.

• Rake out any dead, matted turf. Your grass seed will germinate and root best if It can snuggle up to bare soil. (Pro tip: skip the cheap stuff. It can actually have weed seeds mixed in.)
• Dig and loosen the soil a bit to prepare it for the seed.
• Scatter grass seed over the loosened soil. Scratch it in a bit and tamp it down so you know there’s good contact.
• Add some fertilizer designed for new grass to get it off to a good start.
• Keep it watered.

Bare Spots in Your Lawn? Trust it to RainMaster in Eau Claire, WI & Minneapolis

You can avoid bare spots on your pizza by ordering it with double everything.

Protect your lawn from bare spots with a complete, proactive lawn care program to continuously improve and protect your lawn.

Consider it a team effort. Let’s create a custom nutrition plan for your lawn, so the roots will be nourished, the soil packed with nutrients, and your grass thick and healthy, so it resists the troublemakers that cause yellow, bare, or dead spots in your lawn.

We offer three different levels of lawn care programs, based on the results you’d like, how fast you want to see results, and your budget.

Spare yourself the drama of dead grass and get to the bottom of your lawn problems. Request a quote today! We’ll review your lawn care options together so you can make a great choice. Then, you can finally enjoy your lawn and stop worrying about it.

Image Source: dollar spot fungus