Scorched lawn

Hi,

My lawn is in poor shape. It's not strong, not rich in colour and has weeds etc, though there are no bare patches. Having used a (dry) feed and weed I've somehow managed to scorch the lawn so it looks worse. I walked in lines as strictly as possible, walked at an even pace, and it rained at the right time to water it in - I followed all the instructions. I don't know what I did wrong, but now I still have a weak and weed ridden lawn, only now with burned patches too.

I need to rescue the lawn - can anyone offer advice on whether a particular lawn feed would help nourish it, or whether I should do something else? The garden's north facing and shadows from our garage mean most of the lawn is in shade after 3pm.

Also, there are 3 tree stumps in the lawn that I would like to get out of the ground as they cause hills, making mowing hard work and looks odd - perhaps I should not focus on the lawn in general but attend to this first? I have no idea how to get them out of the ground, or do people tend to leave them and put up with the stump and roots?

Thanks for reading this.

 

Hi Jaffa,

Scorched lawn will recover but rain/watering will help it along. Did the amount you used correspond with the area of your lawn .

If you've used a weed and feed then wait a few weeks to see the effect.

I think you've answered your own question - do the stumps first as the rotting wood can bring its own problems - honey fungus for one. If its feasible take them out or have them ground out. Taking them out by hand depends on the size, type of root and how rotten they are and how fit you are. Try and remove as much of the root as possible.

 

Your lawn will be fine I'm sure. Grass is quite a tough thing, and will green up when the rain comes. The tree stumps will have to go, but make sure you know what you are letting yourself in for! I would water around the stump you are going to remove the night or a couple of nights before, and I would really soak the area, which if you haven't had any rain prior, it will help.

I would dig off the turf around the stump, and put that to one side, as it can be re-used. You will be surprised as to the size of hole you have to dig, and I would make sure that I had use of the following. An old pair of loppers, and an old saw, these will be great for chopping roots off that you find, but as you are cutting into the soil, there is potential for damaging a good pair/saw, so I would use an old ones. Perhaps an axe, which when all else fails, you can resort to chopping at the stump to break bits off, which will expose more roots to dig. The last thing I would suggest that you need is time, and patience! You could find that the first one takes an age while you are finding a way to take it out.

Happy Diggin!

Hope this Helps!