Why Is My Lawn Dying?

[KunMatt]

I need some advice please about grass here in Ubon;

I turfed my back garden with the Japanese grass, about 150m2. When I first laid it I let it grow for a few weeks and it was gorgeous, really lush and green, I kinda wanted to keep it so thick but was told it had to be shorter for the water to get to the soil and also I was kinda worried about snakes etc so I cut it down to the longest setting on my Bosch lawnmower and then every week went one notch lower until it got down to number 5; 7 is the longest setting (I'm not sure if those numbers are standard but the grass is about 5cm after cutting).

I have a sprinkler system that dumps about 500L of water on the lawn from a shallow well every night after the sun has gone down.

We've had this grass for about 5 or 6 months and it is just getting progressively worse. What started off as green, thick and lush is now slowly becoming a brown lawn with green patches. The roots for the whole lawn are completely brown and look dead, if I rake it a lot of dead grass is removed from all areas, it's been like this for months but I've seen the same roots in good looking park grass and new sods so maybe that's how the roots are supposed to look(?), but the lawn is becoming patchy is some areas with parts of it dying and becoming bare soil.

I'm trying to take good care of the lawn as much as I can, I've tried using grass food to improve it but it didn't. We have 2 medium size dogs pooing and peeing in the garden which doesn't help.

So, I don't know what the best thing to do to make this better. I read that you are supposed to cut the grass a little bit frequently but it hasn't helped. I water the lawn every single night but it hasn't helped. I clean up or wash down the dog mess whenever needed but it hasn't helped.

So I'm assuming one or more of these factors is slowly killing my grass;

- The grass is being too short or is too long

- Too much or too little water

- The Well water is not good for the lawn

- The dogs

Can somebody offer any suggestions?

[transam]

It's the soil it must route in. Same for me so l planted the grim Malaysian stuff cos it will grow.

[KunMatt]

It's the soil it must route in. Same for me so l planted the grim Malaysian stuff cos it will grow.

I laid it in rainy season and it grew really, really well until I started to cut it and water it. The soil is always moist, can you over water grass??

I'm going to let it it grow longer again for a few weeks and see what happens as there has been no signs of improvement by cutting it regularly for the last 3 months.

Any ideas what else I should do?

Cheers.

[bankruatsteve]

Sounds like too much water to me. Ideally, the water penetrates the soil and the roots follow. If your soil is hard, you have to back off on the water so the roots will dig in. Even though it looks dead, chances are it will recover and look great.

[KunMatt]

Sounds like too much water to me. Ideally, the water penetrates the soil and the roots follow. If your soil is hard, you have to back off on the water so the roots will dig in. Even though it looks dead, chances are it will recover and look great.

Yeah, I'm starting to think it is being over watered too. I bought this sprinkler system because the earth was very dry and hard after I'd laid the lawn and it uses about half of our 1200L water tank every night which is the sprinkler running for about an hour.

I think I will either water less every day or use the sprinklers every other day.

Also, I'm going to let the grass grow a bit longer to see if it can recover because there are some parts of the lawn which may have been missed by the lawnmower a couple of times so they are much longer than the rest and these parts look very thick and healthy.

Any other suggestions or tips welcomed.

[jocko]

In hot country s not good to cut your grass short and sounds like you are over watering it as well .

Good luck

[trogers]

Soil of rice fields has low sand content. Overwatering cause the soil to compact, reducing aeration to the roots. One way to check is to dig out a hole and dry the large lumps of soil under the sun. When dried, the soil turns into solid cakes, becoming solidified mud.

Best is not to use soil from the fields. Lay a 6" layer of fine sand and then import top planting soil for your lawn.

[JAS21]

My wife told me that all grass should be layed on a bed of sand, two inches thick or more. I didn't believe her so laid, luckily just a small area directly onto soil. It doesn't look that good no matter how I treat it. The back lawn I listened to her and it's lush. I used nuan noi turfs.

There's some info on coolthaihouse.com ... Sod it all ... it appears that a guy called 'the.maestro' is a bit of a know all on grass ... have a look and maybe ask the question

Edited January 23, 2013 by JAS21

[Beardog]

When you originally planted your sod the best way to start it is to flood the lawn for 2 weeks. I have grown over 3 Rai's of sod both Japanese & Malaysian with great sucsess. We usually get abunch of swamp soil from one of the farms that sell the soil to the local excavator for topsoil 1600 baht a load but well worth it. along with the sand as mentioned underneath this takes care of the airation problems of hard clay.

I don't even get a lawnmower close to the lawn for about 18-20 days. If you have a female dog the urine will kill the lawn & regenerate over time if the dog does not frequent this spot as the only spot to pee. I would avoid fertalizing for a while. The nitrates will further damage the lawn.

We are just finishing our 2 weeks of flooding the lawn(graduating the amount daily as it takes less to flood even with soil that drains well.

One word of caution. I put in endless sprinkler systems( I used to work irrigation when I was a kid) and I found the coverage great for trees but crap for lawn. under the sprinkler heads not enough water & the end of the sprinkler run too heavy. We switched to Hand watering & got superb results!

The # 1 on TV for lawn is Cheshirepianoman. He put me together with the pro tips that gave me a lot of satisfaction in all the lawns wegrew & are growing.

But like others have stated the lawn will come back to you. Still better to overwater than underwater as demonstrated by rainy season. I like the Malaysian the best. the Bosch mowers bog with Japanese turf & are finiky compared to the Malay. That & you really got to blow it to kill it! Japanese DOES NOT like shade at all. Malay does not care full sun no sun & still feels great on bare feet.

Edited January 24, 2013 by Beardog

[bankruatsteve]

Just to add... as others have posted, we also put a few cm of sand down before laying the sod (well, we also chopped up the compacted soil with a hoe first.) Most of the yard had the roots take right off and great turf 2 years running now. We fertilize every 3 months.

But, we also initially had a few patches that turned brown-grey in the rainy season (like the OP) where the lawn really got flooded. I put sand directly on top of those and sometimes more if it washed away and all came back lush and green in a few weeks. ie: like sanding a golf green - not too much but enough to help the roots get going.

[Terry Newman]

Also, it could be "lawn Grubs". I get them in Thailand. What II suggest you try is wet an old fashion hessian bag, actually just use 2 bath towels, wet them, then lay them down, and put a brick on each end for the NIGHT. I say 2 so it is dark under them. These grubs are about an inch long, and full of grass.

Then in the morning when you get up or before 7am for the hung over piss heads, lift up the towels and look for the grubs on the surface. They only come to the surface in the night when the birds cant see them. Do not water the the day or 2 before by the way. Make under the towels the nice homely spot for a grub.

Try different areas that are dieing.. To get rid of them, you can use this method and pick em and squash em. Or spray chemicals that kill things. or ask in the organic gardening section on Thai Visa, some guru there might be able to help. Please report back if you find a guru and link it up !!!!