Blotchy yellow patches in a new lawn (8 months old)

Hello,

We would be very grateful for your advice about our lawn. We moved into our new new home (new build) in September 2020, in Cork, Ireland. The lawn had just been laid in July by the builders. The soil contained some stones so we removed those as best we could. We applied new seed to fill in the bare patches and in October we applied some autumn lawn care. In March we applied some fertiliser the gardening store supplied.

However, as you can see in the photos, we have these yellow blotchy patches in the lawn. I would love to find a way to make it uniform green. I am not sure if the cause is the soil health, or if I misapplied the fetiliser, or just that we maybe used a different seed to the original.

The yellowy ones, as you can see in the attached image, seem to be yellow at the root with more green grass pushing through now.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

Thank you. I will try to do that and post a photo.

It is well watered. What would the remedy be if it's a drainage issue?

 

Thank you so much for the replies.

The soil is pretty clean for about 12 cm / 5 inches and then there's a hard stoney base.

For now, I will try spiking it everywhere and adding some topsoil.

The grass had the same yellowy patches everywhere before I tried applying the fertiliser, but I'm happy to add more with a spreader if you think I should? Is there a particular fertiliser product you would recommend?

 

It's been 4 months since my original post. I'd be grateful for some further advice.

I applied some fertilizer recommended by a local garden centre, as they said that would be better for a garden: Scott's Renovator Pro

I followed the instructions, but I feel like maybe I burned the lawn a bit as there was a lot of dead grass.

I raked away dead grass, spiked the lawn all over, removed any stones.

I did a soil test and it showed up as very acidic, so I applied some garden lime. That was about 1 month ago.

You can see the lawn is very blotchy, not uniform at all. I would love to have a uniform green throughout. The green bits are growing very densely and much taller than the surrounding grass.

It seems to be similar in neighbouring gardens.

Grateful for your advice!

 

Do you know what grass seed was used??? It looks like some of it is dying too me…….

You could spike it all again and add a top dressing of sand and seed, water well for the first 10/14 days

 

Lime is very hard to get right, over do it and it’s hard to correct the issue. Was this soil test a sample sent away to test or a home test kit?

don’t just apply sand either, sand has not benefit by it’s self as a single dress option. You need to try to keep inline with your soil structure. Sand does not hold nutrients so by creating a level of sand you create issues. It will do nothing to aid recovery and Sandy soil structures need different approaches.

did you apply this renovator pro with a drop spreader or by hand? This contains a herbicide and I’m starting to see lots of red thread around here and grass that is under attack by disease needs care when applying herbicide as it’s prone to be damaged. As this is a weed and feed you can’t adjust the NPK and it needs to be applied at the correct rate. Single feeds can be adjusted.

if you had no weeds the fertiliser was the wrong choice and they do a straight single fertiliser without a herbicide.

Sometimes it’s best to rethink your approach. If you are not use to feeding then a liquid feed would be a better choice. Remember feeds alter the readings of the soil for short periods. Don’t soil sample after a feed.

your issue is the grass is in recovery after the raking, I can’t see an issue with your grass plant but your method of application is to blame.

 

Thanks so much for the replies. It was a home soil test kit. I'm a complete amateur so I should probably just let it do it's thing for a while and not interfere any more. I don't know the seed that was used, but I added other seed in January that I bought in a DIY store - Miracle Gro brand I think. I applied renovator pro by hand, and there were no weeds, so I guess that was a big mistake.

However, I notice that my neighbours have the same blotchiness / coloring. And today I noticed that the common green area in front of the houses is suffering from what I assume is redthread, where there are clusters of dense wirey red grass.

Is it possible my lawn is also suffering from the early stages of that lawn disease? They symptoms for that seem similar. If so, should I do something, or contact a professional?

 

Read thread is very common however normally with lawn diseases when you have one another will be lurking there.
Best to treat the grass with a fertiliser and an iron mix and leave the cut higher than normal to hide the disease which as the weather improves will disappear.
The renovator pro really needs a drop spreader for even and accurate drop rate and it’s best to avoid handling it as it’s not safe to do so unless you wear gloves. It’s worth noting it contains iron too so care should be taken as iron stains and wreaks patio and flooring where the stains are very hard to remove and on carpets or wooden floors impossible to shift.

weed and feeds are aggressive with its use of nitrogen, it will create growth above the normal growth pattern. Handy to encourage rapid growth and recovery from a weed infested lawn but the secret to turf is to keep its growth as near to natural as possible.
Normally if you are not use to feeding lawns liquid is the better choice or you stick with say the miracle gro granular and use a evergreen drop spreader as the packets show the drop rate calculation for those drop spreaders so it makes like easy.
Not easy to diagnose if the areas that are red are a disease or a deficiency issue.
Red thread looks like this. Notice the tips are red or pink.

 

Thank you - here's an example of the redness in the common areas of the estate. I don't have this red effect in my lawn yet, thankfully.

You are right about renovator pro - it did stain our patio! I used gloves. I regret getting it, but it's what the garden centre told me to try. I'm nervous to use any fertilizer now - thinking I should just leave it naturally grow and cut it regularly and hope for the best.

 

Really hard to say what’s going on there but the soil and density of the grass plant don’t look great.
It does not look like red thread though as that tends to be pale in looks with the tops showing the pink/reddish tinge.

The stains from the iron will not be easy to shift and might never come out but may fade over time. Don’t use any type of acid cleaner to try and shift it or harsh power washing as it may damage the surface of the patio.

Renovator pro is a professional product and what was the Scott’s range, while it is ICL it is very similar to the modern evergreen/miracle gro weed and feed.
A few years back thanks to new regs they changed the composition and I no longer use it as I don’t find it that effective.
The way to apply by hand is to measure out the amount required for 1 mtr2 then apply to area which is a long and painful way where as the Scott’s evendrop spreader off the top of my head was around 6 on the release setting.

I’ve a few customers that feed their lawns or wanted to try and needed a simple way so I suggested the miracle Gro lawn feed and their hose feeder which don’t cost much. You just add a Packet of feed into the hose feeder and then water the lawn. It’s fairly high in nitrogen like many domestic feeds and will get the grass growing. It will not stain if careful and is dead easy to use.

if you want to stick to granular feeds and water in if rain is not due then the Scott’s evendrop spreader is a perfect partner to the evergreen/miracle gro products as it includes the settings on the packet.

Your other option is spraying the lawn with a basic knapsack and using liquid fertilisers or seaweed feeds. A watering can will also do the job for some.

Most fertilisers are corrosive so any tools need to be cleaned afterwards.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lawn-Exper...eywords=Lawn+care+book&qid=1625320836&sr=8-10

the link above is a good book to learn the very basics of lawn care. It’s easy to understand.
Don’t give up if you want to try and achieve a nice lawn, it takes a bit of time to get to grips with but the end results are worth it. Once you master say applying fertiliser with a drop spreader it takes just a few mins to do a lawn your size and you can then sit back and admire your work.

 

Leather jackets ?

 

Great, thank you! I just ordered that book as well, so I'll be studying up on everything.