Will last year's new turf grass come back?

I've googled it and it could be Lesser Celendine. It's basically taking over the lawn where the grass should be.

 

I would rather have grass instead of woodchipping the entire area. But I suppose I may have to be creative.

A lawn of Lesser Celendine won't look great.

 

Yes that's definitely celandine. It will disappear completely in a couple of months. Where has it come from though? Do you have it elsewhere in the garden, or could it have arrived with the turf?

 

I had a look around and it's also in my neighbour's front garden and in the front of my front garden where the turf wasn't laid.

It could have come with the turf, or it could just be taking advantage of the dead turf and populating the area. I can't be sure.

Will it disappear for good in a few months? Or just for the summer and then come back?

 

Just for the summer. It spreads by loads of little bulblets in the ground which will stay there permanently. I suspect it is just taking advantage of the dead turf, but surprised it got there so quickly. Though I guess it could have been present in the soil under the new turf.

 

It doesn't look like first year plants to me, so either it was already there when they prepared the soil prior to laying the turf or it was in the turf.
Either way it shouldn't be there.

 

Yes, it's annoying.


I'm thinking now about possibly forking over the dead turf and spreading some grass seed and see if it takes hold.

 

I'd wait until there's some rain in the forecast.

My back grass is full of celandine at the moment - it's a very shady spot - and I'm expecting bare patches when the celandine dies back. I will try applying some lawn seed then.

 

Can you just sprinkle the seed on the dead area (dead turf in my case), or do you need to dig the area a bit first?

 

If topsoil was brought in to raise the levels, the celandine was probably in that.

 

Are you saying it was brown immediately after you mowed it? That would mean cutting it so low that you removed all the green growth down to soil level, which seems unlikely but if the lawn had already stopped growing for the winter, it could have left it with no green leaf to photosynthesise which I suppose could have killed it, but I never heard of anyone cutting the whole of their grass that short. It does happen if there are bumps in a lawn that get "scalped" but not the whole lawn.

 

I guess since the new growth of grass is at the bottom, it must have already died before that last grass cut.

 

Long shot, but you didn't have anyone in to treat it with weedkiller did you? The wrong one (i.e. one that's not specifically for lawns) would have killed it.

 

No, none of that. Only ever put water on it.

 

Quite possibly. I think that's probably what happened.