Please help my front lawn look pretty again

April 16, 2023 9:53 AM

We bought a house in the winter. Yay! Now that the snow has melted, the front lawn has been revealed, and it does not match the neighbors’ lawns. It’s dry and sad and yellow.

There’s a stark line differentiating the yellow area from the green areas. It’s like the previous owners treated one big rectangle of grass. You can even see from one side of the walkway to the other that one side is affected and the other looks fine.

This is in Minneapolis. We are new homeowners. Looking down the street, the neighbors lawns look normal and green. What can we do to help our lawn?

Here are some photos—
One two three four five six

Thanks pals!

posted by sucre to Home & Garden (13 answers total)

Best answer: It's quite possible that the grass in the yellow area is a different variety from the grass that is already green. Different grasses have slightly different growing seasons. It looks to me that the yellow area has some green shoots and is therefore probably not dead, but I am no turf expert, just a long-term lawn-haver.
posted by DrGail at 10:16 AM on April 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

You might have zoysiagrass or another variety that turns yellow/brown in the winter and then bounces back completely when it warms up. I would wait and see what it does later in the spring before making any decisions.

If it is zoysiagrass, it spreads (not sure if it counts as "invasive" or not) and is hard to remove—my parents' house had it in one section of the lot and I'm pretty sure they ended up digging it out and putting in sod of a different variety.
posted by bcwinters at 10:26 AM on April 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm going to guess that there are different grasses mixed in there. Pick some areas of the yellow/brown sections and grab a handful and tug gently. If it stays there, the grass is dormant and will probably come back just fine when it warms up enough. If it comes out easily, it's dead and you'll be looking at a re-seeding or re-sodding later in the season.

It's entirely possible the previous neighbors just seeded some areas that were bare for whatever reason with the "wrong" type of seed from the rest of the lawn. Or the lawn is dead. Might be worth getting a landscaper out for a professional opinion once you figure out if the lawn is dormant or dead.
posted by cooker girl at 10:27 AM on April 16, 2023

Please wait - you just don't know what is there yet (and you won't til fall when everything has come through). You just bought this house - there are many things to discover including the yard. I see green in several places and have hopes for (at least part of) your yard. Watch what happens this year (through fall), watch the light, watch what comes up, and then make a plan. And if you like your neighbors grass style - just ask them what seed they are buying/treatment they are doing and do it too. I suspect it may have just been that your neighbors watered their lawn last summer and your house did not get watered. We can also see that your yellow grass is longer and often you can let the grass go not water it and not mow it and it turns yellow like that.
posted by mutt.cyberspace at 1:28 PM on April 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

You could have a couple things happening in addition to the different varieties of grass hypothesis noted above. We had two straight summers of drought in Minneapolis, so it may be that chunks of your lawn are toast. Japanese beetle grubs are also a big lawn-killing factor, which some people battle with beneficial nematodes and other stuff applied at specific times of years.

It’s still too early to be doing hard core raking/lawn work, despite what you may have seen your neighbors do last week when it was warm. You can try to dethatch and reseed the area around mid-May - I’d recommend trying a clover or no-mow fescue mix (Mother Earth Gardens sells both via bulk bins).

If it’s grub damage, you may be in for a losing battle (raccoons like to dig up the dead spots to eat said grubs and do more damage). Long-term it might be a good idea to think about other landscaping options (wildflowers, perennials, etc.).
posted by Maarika at 1:51 PM on April 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Another idea: as new people on the block, this is the perfect way to meet and talk to your neighbors. You can ask them if they know how the previous owners waged their lawn battles, you can ask for advice, etc. It’s like the easiest, least offensive way to interact with shy Minnesotans, and after a long winter they will be relieved to have such an easy conversation opener with the new people on the block.
posted by Maarika at 1:57 PM on April 16, 2023 [9 favorites]

Look into local eco-lawns... much less maintenance and water required and native grasses will grow better than fussy imports. Better yet, tear it all out and replace with a beautiful landscape of native plants that will be zero maintenance and feed the local fauna.
posted by bink at 1:57 PM on April 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: It's possible they put down sod in a particularly bare section when they listed the house to make it look nice and then didn't water it as obscenely often as you need to to get sod to root. I concur with everyone else to wait and see what happens, and then talk to neighbors and/or a landscaper. No one will care nearly as much as you do about the brown lawn. Believe me, we had to leave our front lawn a literal mud pile for a whole year after getting the sewer line replaced. (The dirt needs a lot of time to settle, and then it was winter and even with a full year of settling we now have a low spot where we removed the "extra" soil and it continued to settle further.)
posted by misskaz at 4:17 PM on April 16, 2023 [4 favorites]

For right now, maybe get a few "color bowls" of whatever cheerful thing local nurseries carry. Keep those watered and deadheaded and it will be evident that you are Trying.

Then talk to your neighbors, and Extension, and garden centers if you want to do your own gardening; or landscapers if you don’t.
posted by clew at 5:26 PM on April 16, 2023

Best answer: My old place had a patch of bad grass after the city did some digging and covered the dug area with sod rolls made of a grass species that just never did well. I’ll be watching this thread with interest because I just could never get that grass looking right again.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 6:29 PM on April 16, 2023

Best answer: I agree with asking the neighbours first, and also to waiting a little to see how the lawn goes. There are clear signs of recovery among the brown, so it might just need a bit more time to recover.

The clear line between green and brown does make it look a bit like someone sprayed weedkiller over the lawn, but ran out before they finished the job. Even if that's the case ( or something similar), I would take the same action. It looks a lot like all the lawn is the same grass and is the same as the neighbour's, so my best advice is wait and see at this stage. I might be inclined to rake over the grass to remove the dead stalks, but that's just me.
posted by dg at 9:03 PM on April 16, 2023

Best answer: I'd agree that that grass is fine, it's just a 'warm weather' grass that doesn't germinate until the temperatures warm up. You don't give your location, but across most the US, grass goes dormant in the winter and comes back once the soil temperature is above about 70F.

Bermuda, st augustine, bahia, zoysia are the most common warm season grasses.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:37 AM on April 17, 2023

Best answer: Oh wait, yes you did, I just can't read. Minneapolis is a cool-season grass location, so they probably planted the wrong stuff for your area.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:40 AM on April 17, 2023