Your Calgary area lawn is coming out of its winter dormancy, and you’re noticing yellowish or dead patches that you haven’t seen before. You now have the landscaping equivalent of a detective’s mystery.
Unless there is an obvious reason for your yellow patches – for example, your dog tends to gravitate towards that one section of grass when it’s time to do their “business” – you have a lot of culprits to eliminate before you identify their cause. Unexplained patches of yellow grass are a very solid reason to consider hiring a professional like Mirage Landscaping in Calgary. We have the extensive experience required to accurately finger the suspect in your case of yellow grass and take the correct measures to fix it.
What’s Going Wrong?
If your entire lawn is going yellow and dry, then you are simply either not watering enough or you are cutting your grass too short when mowing. Cutting too close allows the sun’s harsh rays to get to the delicate roots of your grass and cause it to dry up quickly. Raise the blades on your mower a bit, and remember to keep raising it throughout the season as the sun gets hotter and hotter. Leave your grass a little longer over the winter for added protection.
If you’re watering often but your grass is still dry, you may be watering at the wrong time. Try to water at dawn or dusk so that the sun doesn’t cause water loss from evaporation. And aerate often to ensure that moisture has a chance to soak in.
If your lawn’s yellow spots are blotchy and random throughout the lawn, there may be more than one cause. You’re going to have to sift through a number of clues before you’ll be able to determine your main suspect. Perform a few tests and make a few observations:
- Make sure your grass isn’t a sun loving type mistakenly planted in deep shade or a shade loving type exposed to constant sunlight.
- Check the soil in your trouble areas. It could be you have a nitrogen deficiency or the grass is lacking another nutrient essential to the photosynthesis process.
- Look around. Is the problem confined to your yard, or do your neighbours face similar problems? If they do, there could be a disease or fungus in your area.
- Has fertilizer recently been applied? Could your yellow spots have been caused by “burning” the grass by applying too much fertilizer?
Unless you know exactly what you are confronting, it’s possible to actually make the problem worse. For instance, if your lawn has an infestation of Chinch bugs, which feed away at the very sap of the turf grasses commonly used in Calgary, applying an anti fungal to the lawn is waste of money that does nothing to address the underlying problem that is causing the damage.
The Usual Suspect
Nearly every home lawn care detective has a blind spot when it comes to identifying who the real culprits in their yellow grass mystery may be…themselves.
Most yellow grass problems are caused by amateur lawn maintenance. Whether it is not aerating, too much fertilizer applied too often, too much “targeted” weed killer, inconsistent watering, or high-use that is damaging your grass, humans are the most likely suspects when yellow spots occur.
Once a patch of grass has been killed, often the only option is reseeding or sodding. To take all of the guesswork out of the continuing health of your lawn task advantage of Mirage’s years of lawn care expertise and built your green space to last.
Whether you are a residential home owner , or you require commercial landscaping services , your green spaces are the public face of your home or business. Their healthy appearance tells the community that you care enough to look your very best and makes a personal statement. At Mirage Landscaping, we have maintenance plans that keep our customers’ properties looking as beautiful as possible until winter again takes hold. As you will find, we can also get you through the winter, safe and ice free , until your property’s next spring clean up . Contact us for a quote and see how we can help.