How To Get Grass Green Again

how to make a brown lawn green

Has your lawn turned brown and dry? Experienced gardeners know that the grass will recover eventually but they also know it will need some help. Lawn expert David Hedges-Gower explains what to do.

So, if you want yours to be one of the first lawns to return to a glorious healthy green this year, start planning now for the right steps to take this autumn.

How to make a brown lawn green

Aerate the soil:

Heat and drought will have shrunk the soil in your lawn and grass hates dry and compacted soil. It needs air and water to thrive and maintain a strong root system. Once the heat has passed, autumn renovation begins below ground with aeration.

Your mission is to decompact the soil. Rather than use a garden fork, use a tool designed for the job. Hollow-tine aerating forks and machines do exactly what your lawn needs.

They remove cores of soil from the lawn without further compressing the soil. This creates small channels which help improve root development, water percolation and soil nutrition. A mechanised aerator can aerate a 250 square metre lawn in 20 minutes. A hollow tine fork takes longer but is fine for a small lawn.

Is the grass dead?

Any healthy grass will not have died below ground. The dead brown leaves are simply what happens when the grass shuts down as the mercury rises and the plants' own reserves are exhausted. And with your newly-decompacted soil, autumn rains will soon see green growth reappear. But those dead leaves will have created some excess thatch that needs removing. The lawn needs scarifying – think of it as autumn pruning.

Scarify the lawn:

The same as for aerating, the right tool gives the best results. For small areas you can scarify the lawn with a wire rake, but it will never prune as well as a powered 'bladed' machine. A purpose-designed scarifying machine will slice through the shoots and leaves, maximising the grass's ability to regenerate from the re-emerging plants. So hiring – or even buying – a scarifier will greatly improve your lawn.

Overseeding:

Some bare patches on the lawn may need the addition of new grass, and as you are improving conditions in the soil and on the surface you can also do some overseeding too.

Choose between a blend of natural species (bents and fescues, or what is often referred to as a 'luxury lawn mix') or a dwarf ryegrass seed mixture for increased wear and tear. To view some of the best grass seed mixes click here.

Feed the lawn:

It is possible that your lawn actually stopped growing before the long dry spell. And since then it will have been living off its own food reserves, and will now be very hungry indeed. But what do you feed it? And how much?

Over-feeding should not be too much of an issue this autumn, but in these conditions, avoid a high nitrogen quick release fertiliser. Instead use an autumn lawn food that has a small amount of phosphate and potassium, as well as nitrogen.

These three things – soil work, pruning and feeding – are paramount if you want to see your beautiful lawn emerge once more this autumn, especially so this year.

Find out more about UK lawn expert David Hedges-Gower here.

For more autumn jobs for the garden, click here.