Why is my grass yellow?

We have just encountered the wettest winter on record and yet most of us do not realise the effect that may have had on our lawns.

Lack of nitrogen
 

With so much water falling there is every likelihood that many nutrients will have been washed away from the substructure of our lawns. One particular nutrient, nitrogen, is vital in promoting healthy grow of your grasses.

Yellow grasses, usually appear after cutting during long dry spells and indicate your lawn is not being watered enough. This season, however, it would appear that there is a distinct lack of nitrogen within the substructure, over large areas of the UK, caused because of the unusually wet weather.

Fertiliser

Whilst, if on a sandy substructure, you may be used to needing to apply a nitrogen-based fertiliser every year, for those of us on clay soils it is not so common, as the clay usually holds the nutrients considerably better than sandy soils.

The season, however, it is likely that virtually every lawn will require some nitrogen-based fertiliser applied to, not only, turn your grasses greener, but also to strengthen them. Many lawns are also very patchy, and the fertiliser will help to fill in the gaps with new grasses establishing themselves within those patches.

Of course, there may be a whole number of reasons why your lawn is not looking its best at this time of the year and asking an expert to carry out an analyse of your lawn is probably the most efficient step to take, because overfeeding a lawn is as bad as providing no feed to your lawn!

More information

> Royal Horticultural Society