Help and advice needed with a lawn please

Hi, I’m in a newish built house of about 9 years. I’ve got a problem with the lawn at the front of my house. It has always been lush and full. I feed it about 3 times a year while it’s growing but the problems started last year.
About this time last year I noticed it was becoming patchy and yellow. When it had just started to grow, I scarified it and removed a lot of moss and thatch. I then overseeded it and over time it did improve. Nothing like it should but with feed it was better.
At the moment as you can see, things have got worse to the point that I’m ready to pull it out and re turf it.
It looks to me like some kind of disease. I have noticed my neighbour, a good 50 metres away, his front lawn is doing the same. Can anybody shed any light on what it might be and what I can do to improve it before I just start over.
Amazingly the back lawn which is about a 10x larger plot is fine.

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

 

Hello. Looks like the aftermath of a lawn diseased by red thread late summer.
Where abouts in the country are you? It was very wet summer for a chunk of the country, wet and warm are ideal conditions for red thread and other problems.

 

Looks to me like it might be damage from cutworms or leather jackets which are insect larvae that hatch from eggs laid in the grass and eat the plants growing close to the soil surface when they hatch. Birds pecking about the surface feeding on them can be a sign of this being the issue and they will reduce the numbers but if that is the cause it looks like a fairly severe infestation and you might need to dig over the area and reseed. There may still be some about that have not matured yet if you dig about the soil and this will help provide a positive diagnosis. Leave them on the surface as bird food before reseeding to help reduce the chance of them growing in to moths or crane flies and returning to lay eggs and damage the lawn again.
Happy gardening!

 

Im in Lancashire so a wet summer, yes. It’s strange how it started about this time last year and improved with work but has happened again. But your idea does sound feasible. Thanks

 

It was something that I’ve thought about. I remember years ago my dad getting something similar and it stripped his lawn. It seemed to go working a season and it was back to normal. I’ve got to be honest, I haven’t seen many birds in the garden last year but the bare patches would seem logical. Its just that it is now getting into the second season having semi rectified it last year with overseeding. I think I need a profressional to take a look. Thanks for your input

 

I read this interesting blog:


Interesting read, that’s something to try.

 

If the problem is leatherjackets; then there is a nematode treatment you can water on. Soil temperature needs to be high enough. There is a similar treatment for chafer beetle grubs.