3 lawn problems

[Kenpachigo]

All,

As the title mentions, I have a couple of problems in my lawn. Some feedback or hints are appreciated.

Problem 1 - Bald spots

I recently seeded a new lawn. The grass did not grow evenly everywhere and the weeds seemed to grow faster then the grass. After two months (or something like that), I used some weed killers for newly seeded lawns. This made the bald spot problem even worse.


Bald spot problem after weed killer

So I went to the local gardening store. And they told me that I should fertilize. Which I off course did. I also bought myself a robot mower. Although I didn't buy it to solve this problem, it has the added benefit that the grass is cut more regular. Which in turn means that all the grass sprouts have the same length (and they get the same amount of sun). Before, some patches were growing faster and "stealing" the sun from neigboring grass sprouts. Also, the robot mower mulches instead of cutting (also fertilizing the grass).


After fertilizing + robot mower (1 week)

1 week after I bought my robot mower and I added some fertilizer, my grass is already looking much better.
Nice green and thick grass. Only there are some bare spots left.

The questions I have are:

Will the bare spots eventually disappear ? Will the grass "expand" over time? If not, can I:

1. Get some fertilized soil
2. mix in some grass seeds
3. scarify/rake the bald spots
4. Mix the soil+ weeds into the bald spot

Or is there another way to get rid of these bald spots?



Problem 2 - Yellow spots

As mentioned above, I bought a robot mower last week. I also went on holiday last week and when I came back, I had a nicely cut lawn but also a couple of yellow spots. I am assuming this is because of the robot mower because I didn't have these spots before and it's located near the boundary wire.

Question: anybody an idea how to solve this ? And why it happens ?

Is it because the robot mower has more difficulty turning at these points? Can I solve it by moving the perimeter a little bit ?


Problem 3: bad ground quality

Some background info on this problem. When I bought this house (garden), there was a border of bricks in this part of the garden (in the picture it's the the arc where no gras is growing.). I removed these bricks and there was like some hardened foundation. I thought there was enough soil left between the foundation and the surface to not have any problems.
But it seems I was wrong. So here the questions is:

Can I dig out the hardened foundation and then re-seed this part of the garden? Or can I somehow make this part better without removing the foundation? As there are some nice and green plucks of grass which did grow on the part with foundation. Maybe it's possible but it will give again problems in summer when there is not enough soil to draw water from ?

 

[Ian]

Yes, those bald patches will recover - I would be careful not to fertilise a newly sowed lawn. For the next month or so (assuming it's still warm with minimal rain), I'd water your lawn a couple of times a week for around 20-3mins early in the morning (ideally via a timer sprinkler). If those patches are due to overfertilising or over use of weedkiller, it may take until the end of the grass growing season to recover (although it should improve a lot!).

As for the yellow spots - do you have any animals urinating in your garden? Cats, Dogs, Foxes, etc...? That can sometimes cause patches like that. I don't think it would be due to the mower from the look of it, but given how close it is to a boundary, then I guess it is possible.

For the rubble in the soil, you'll likely need to dig it out. It won't do your mower much good if some of the hardcore comes look and hits a blade. If you're very dedicated (or have children than want to earn pocket money!), then you could try picking them out by hand and then re-sow those areas. It may be easier to just dig that small area up to a short depth, add some soil and re-turf it, given the small size.

 

[Robert Cummings]

I agree the yellow spots look like the result of animal urine. I too would remove the underlying hardcore and perhaps top dress the bald areas and poor areas with an autumn top dressing with some grass seed mixed in usually about a handful of seed in a 2 gallon bucket of top dressing will suffice, no need to apply thickly but keep well watered until the seeds start to germinate. If you have any areas which lie a bit wet you may also wish to spike with either a garden fork or lawn spiker available from good garden shops or internet. Hope this helps..

 

[Kenpachigo]

Thanks for the feedback guy's. Is there a way to confirm that it's animal urine ? We do have a cat, so it's possible.

 

[Robert Cummings]

Without getting too scientific digging up some of the soil with the yellowing and sending it to a laboritory for analysis just keep an eye on where the cat or any other animal goes to toilet.It may even be a wild animal, so might not be too easy to find the culprit. Weed and feed your lawn, this will give it some resistance to the problems you describe.