Gardening Tips - Dead Spots in Your Lawn

Dead spots can occur for several reasons. Don't just whip out the insecticide, find out what is causing the spots.

Dog Spots...

Do you have a female dog? If you have small patches of dead grass, like in the picture to the right, your problem may be animal related. Female dogs squat to urinate where males don't usually go on flat ground. A spot here and there is usually from a dog.

Controling - There are products that repel animals, but the best way is just to not let them go on your grass. Applying water to the affected area immediately afterwards will help to dilute the urine. Find electronic and other animal deterent products at Bird-X.com

Grubs in the Lawn...

Are the spots through-out the lawn, dead areas of grass that can be pulled up very easily? You may have grubs. Grubs eat the grasses roots and thereby kill the plant.

If you live in an area where skunks or armadillos can get to your lawn, and you have grubs, you will notice lots of little holes dug by the skunks. They come in at night and feed on the grubs.

Control grubs with either a spray or granular insecticide.

Lack of water...

If the spots are located sporadically around the lawn or possibly near a sprinkler, lack of water may be the problem. Check your sprinkler's water pattern, is the sprinkler clogged and barely any water comes out or is the water shooting over the dry area? Clean out the sprinkler and adjust the spray pattern of all sprinklers. Sprinklers should have head-to-head coverage.

Your water pressure could also be a factor, try watering early in the morning, when others in the neighborhood are less likely to be watering, your pressure will be much better then.

If sprinklers still don't pop up normally, you should check your valves. The problem is most likely a bad diaphram. This repair is fairly simple. See valve repair.

There are other reasons for spots in your lawn, such as diseases and environmental factors, but these were the most common amongst our maintenance clients.