Lawn care

Why isn’t my lawn growing yet?

There are many reasons why grass is not growing - find out below

All plants need water, sunlight, and nutrients to grow and the lawn, often accounting for the largest surface area of our gardens, is no exception. Moisture, warmth, and correct feeding will all contribute to how well your grass grows and when one of these is lacking or in short supply then often the lawn will suffer.

Author

Kate Turner

Horticulturalist

Temperature

During a cold wet winter, your lawn tends to go dormant and stops putting on any growth. This does not mean that it has died, only that it is resting and in order for your grass to spring back to life it needs warmth.

Whether you are sowing new lawn seed, overseeding or waiting for the existing lawn to get growing, without warmer soil temperatures not a lot will happen. This does not mean that the grass won’t grow or that the seed won’t germinate, it just means you have to be a little bit more patient, and that as soon as the weather warms up the new grass will start to grow.

Feeding

Once the conditions are right for the lawn to start growing, then add a top-quality lawn feed that is high in nitrogen such as Miracle-Gro^® Complete Lawn Food to really encourage that lush green growth. The lawn will need this extra feed, as during the winter, most of the nutrients in the soil will have been washed away by all the wet weather. Applying a feed once the grass starts to grow will give it a much-needed boost and growth will be accelerated.

Don’t apply extra lawn feed to a newly seeded lawn however as you can scorch the young delicate blades.

Pests and disease

If you have very patchy and yellowy growth in your lawn it could mean you have pests, and the biggest enemies are the chafer grub and leatherjackets (cranefly larvae) These not only eat the roots of the lawn, but birds will tear up the lawn trying to get to them.

The best way to overcome these is to use a biological control and overseed in early summer with a hard-wearing grass seed like Miracle-Gro^® EverGreen^® Fast Grass Lawn Seed, as they are mainly active during the autumn and spring.

Miracle-Gro^® Complete Lawn Food

General lawn care

If after following the above advice, you are still seeing poor growth, then it could be that you need to do some TLC on your lawn.

Although autumn is the best time of year to conduct some lawn maintenance, what you can do now includes:

Light scarification: Gently rake the surface of the lawn to remove any dead materials such as dead grass leaves and any other debris lying around.
Aeration: Put some air holes in the lawn. Compaction is one of the biggest issues with lawns especially those that are used a lot and in areas that are walked on many times, so, get a garden fork and push holes all over the lawn with the fork wiggling it backwards and forwards you can then add in some lawn dressing with a stiff brush to work into the holes letting oxygen and water through.
Moss and weeds will often infest a poorly growing lawn area so by doing these two above steps, and then over seeding you will give them much less of a chance to take hold.

By following this advice, you should start to have a lush healthy lawn but always be patient especially when we’ve had a long-wet winter as it can take the lawn just a little bit longer to get going but once it does make sure your mower is ready!