Lawn and Climbers Advice

Hi all, would appreciate some advice.

Does anyone know why the lawn has brown patches in certain areas and what I should do to fix? It hasn't rained for weeks and I haven't watered the grass which probably hasn't helped.

 

I've managed to get some more pictures of the lawn and would I be correct in saying that the below looks like couch grass and not meadow grass? Not really sure how to eliminate this as over much of the lawn.

 

Hi Danny, is it sending out strong, horizontal runners that root as they go? Have you tried pulling it up? The seed heads look more like rye grass but that is relatively easy to pull up compared to couch. I do hope it's rye grass as the only solution to a couch-infested lawn is to kill everything off with glyphosate, and keep treating it for up to three years as it keeps reappearing Even then, it'll try to come back as the roots can go down to 1m. The mechanical option would be a digger and to hand-pick every last fragment of root out before levelling and re-sowing or turfing.

 

I think it was quite difficult to pull out unfortunately, so not looking good.

 

I'd just keep mowing fairly close, it will weaken eventually.
If you let it get long between mowings it will take over.

 

Here are the best three photos of couch that I can find on the 'net. If that's what it looks like, you could keep mowing it, but it will make a beeline for the borders.

If it's not too widespread, you could try lifting a long length by inserting a sharp spade under it and stuff the stem into a container of neat glyphosate concentrate buried in the lawn. It would make mowing interesting, but used to work well as a method for getting rid of bindweed in tricky situations.