grass repair

Hi Sconegarden,

Others may disagree with me, but I think the time to fix your lawn should wait until next year.

Apply a good fall based fertilizer one that includes sulfur and trace minerals and let it go. Greensand if affordable is also good at this time of the year.

Bare areas may also be the affect of Poa annua having died off. That is normal. Some seedlings of this may re-appear naturally next spring.

If you want to overseed the lawn in the spring with a good seed mixture, that includes dwf. fescue and named cultivar dwf. perennial rye.

Hi Sconegarden. I have to answer this question as I am Poa annua.
The fact that you have been raking leaves off the lawn makes me wonder if it is suffering from the effect of tree roots, my Neighbours lawn is nearly bare under a Lime Tree. We hve had a very wet Summer so Poa annua could well have survived. You may have to water the lawn in Summer if trees are causing bad growth.
An alternative to sowing is turfing, that too should wait until Spring.

Hi Sconegarden,
As I see it your lawn may have been left without being mowed in the past few weeks, the leaves have fallen into long grass which you are raking up.
Continue to do the whole lawn and get it free of leaves and old grass. If free of frost spike the bare areas with a fork. Leave to dry out. Much of the grass may return by the spring.

You definitely need to rake ALL the leaves off the grass, bare or not. Any grass left under a carpet of leaves may well suffer. If there's moss in there, the raking also helps to reduce it. Slugs and snails hide under leaves, too, and walking across your 'lawn' would have the effect of compacting the leaves so that no new grass could grow at all. A most unhealthy situation! .You will also get a clearer picture of what you need to do come the spring.