Burnt grass can make your lawn look unsightly. It could be from a fungal infection, hot weather, lack of water, or even watering your lawn during the wrong time of day. Whatever the cause, you want a green lawn again. But how do you get burnt grass to turn green?
Best Options to Get Burnt Grass to Turn Green Again
Burnt grass will typically not turn green again. The dead, brown parts? They are dead and will no longer green up. The only way to get green grass is to remove these dead leaves or patches and support the seeds, sprouts, or root systems that can produce more green blades of grass.
How to Get Burnt Grass Green Again in 5 Steps
Does burnt grass turn green again? It can, but only if the grass only has burnt tips. Anything more than 1/4” of burn will likely result in the blade dying back to the initial shoot or even the roots and new blades being produced to replace it. Below are the steps you should follow to get from a lawn that looks burnt to a green, healthy lawn.
Trim the Grass and Remove Dead Patches
First, you’ll need to trim away all of the dead grass. This could be as simple as mowing your lawn to remove burnt ends or as arduous a process as using a sod cutter to take up large patches of dead grass, roots and all.
Resolve the Reason Your Grass Died
Now is the time to resolve the root cause of why your grass died. If you don’t solve this before you plant more grass or encourage your grass to fill in, you will only end up with more dead grass.
Check Nutrient Levels
Now that you have removed all of the dead grass and are sure the same thing won’t happen for the same reason, it’s time to check your lawn’s nutrient levels. This includes nitrogen, calcium, and magnesium. These three nutrients are key to the recovery of any previously-burnt grass, as well as being necessary for the growth of any new grass.
Fertilize
Once you know what your lawn is deficient in, or if there is room to add a little slow-release nutrition, now is the time to add these nutrients. Be sure to follow the directions provided by the manufacturer to a T. More fertilizer than recommended is never better and may result in more burnt grass.
Overseed or Manually Propagate
Now that the dead grass has been removed, the cause of it has been resolved, and your soil is at optimal nutrient levels you can either wait for your grass to fill in the dead spots (if you have a grass type that will do this), or you can seed over these areas. Grass plugs can also be used to speed up this propagation process.
How Long Should This Process Take?
How long your burnt grass will take to recover depends on the severity of the burn, what caused it, and how quickly you were able to intervene. For example, if you have burnt tips on your grass from watering during a time of the day that was too sunny and hot, all you need to do is mow your lawn, wait a week, and mow again. As long as you keep watering your lawn in the early morning during this time and your soil is healthy, your lawn should be back to its usual green in 8 days.
However, if you have large dead patches you will be waiting much longer. First, you will need to take care of whatever caused these dead patches in the first place. Then you will need to remove all of the dead grass. Last, you will need to plant more grass in these areas or wait for the grass surrounding these patches to fill in. How long this takes will depend on the health of your soil, as well as the type of grass you have and the methods you select. At a minimum, all of this together will likely take at least 4 weeks.
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