Fix Lawn – Yellow Lawn to Green – Dethatching, Aeration, Fertilization – Part 1

Turning Yellow lawns into Green

There are several different probable causes of a yellow lawn. Here are three reasons your lawn may be yellow and how to fix lawn problems, helps yellow lawns turn green.

My lawn turns yellow in the summer. If your whole lawn turns yellow during the summer, it is probably due to compacted soil. Soil that has a lot of clay or silt in it hardens when the temperature increases. Hard soil can makes it very difficult for your grass to absorb the water that it needs to stay green because the water will just run off the surface. This is doubly detrimental to the lawn, because the grass roots can not grow deep and therefore are not as strong, so your grass will die easier and will not fight off bugs and infections as easily.

Fix lawn: Aerate in the Spring or early summer (see link below for aeration or aerator rental) and water an a regular basis so the soil does not have a chance to dry out. And to be sure a good aeration in the fall as well will help your soil out immensely for the next year.

My lawn turns yellow from a lack of sunlight. Another reason for a yellow lawn in the summer is because you have too much thatch in your lawn. Thatch is a build up of dead grass and other debris that lays right on top of the surface of the soil. If it is more than ¼ inch thick, water can have a hard time getting down to the roots of the lawn. It is like trying to water your lawn through a tarp.

To fix lawn: Dethatching your lawn once every few years will solve this problem. To determine if your lawn needs to be thatched, you can get it aerated (always a good idea) and measure the amount of thatch in one of the plugs, or purchase a corer (you can even use an apple corer) and pull out one core from your lawn and measure the amount of thatch.

Needs Nitrogen Fertilizer

Newer lawns especially have this problem. They need to be fertilized. If a see a lawn that is yellow with the exception a few green patches, (where the dog pees) I know that it need nitrogen fertilizer.

Fix your lawn by adding any fertilizers you want that contain nitrogen. It is the first N-P-K number listed on the bag. My favorite nitrogen fertilizer is urea. It’s number is 46-0-0. I also use ammonium sulfate 21-0-0. I prefer urea though because it is a slower release and it lasts twice as long.

We also have another article with 4 more reasons for how to fix a yellow lawn listed under author profile.