Case Study 1
How To Revive A Dying Lawn
In Winnipeg
Cleanr Property Maintenance
Do you want your grass healthy?
Identifying the Problem
Lawns don’t fail for no reason—anything from pests to improper drainage can cause them to decline in health. When we revive a dying lawn, our first step is to assess what has caused the lawn to fail in the first place.Climate Impact
Winnipeg’s weather can be pretty severe, even in the spring and summer. Rainstorms can flood your lawn with too much water—especially in areas with poor drainage. Weeks of drought—hot weather with no rain—can cause your lawn to turn brown and go dormant. Dormant grass isn’t dead—proper watering may revive it. In other cases, more intense interventions may be necessary.
Common Lawn Diseases and Pests in Winnipeg
The two most common lawn pests in Winnipeg are the sod webworm and the glassy cutworm, though chinch bugs are also becoming more common. Several diseases like red thread and powdery mildew, both caused by fungus, are also common. Lawns in Winnipeg are also often plagued by weeds—dandelions, quackgrass (sometimes called couch grass), white clover, and other weeds that grow readily in our soil. Before reviving a dead lawn, it’s essential to eliminate these diseases, pests, and weeds. Read more about Weed control.Lawn Maintenance Issues and Mistakes
Lawns are often damaged by improper maintenance. Fortunately, this is one of the easiest issues to remedy—once you know what mistakes you were making, you can avoid them in the future! Here are a few common maintenance issues and mistakes that affect lawns in Winnipeg:- Overwatering and underwatering (especially in droughts or during especially wet summers)
- Poor thatch control
- Failing to apply fertilizer—or applying the wrong fertilizer
- Not aerating enough or aerating at the wrong time
- Mowing too frequently or cutting the grass too short
- Failing to stop the spread of diseases, weeds, and pests
Our Approach To Reviving a Dying Lawn
Almost any lawn can be revived. We take a customer-first approach; we can always rip out your existing lawn and replace everything with new grass, so-called Sod installation. But we understand that not everyone wants to spend the time and money necessary to start fresh. Fortunately, it’s likely we can revive your lawn even if you’re mostly down to dormant and dead grass. We do this by conducting an initial assessment to determine what has caused your lawn to die, then use a variety of techniques to bring it back to life.
Initial Lawn Assessment
The initial lawn assessment is a bit like a Sherlock Holmes novel—we use our decades of combined expertise to figure out what killed your lawn. You might just have a few dead patches of grass—those may be caused by poor irrigation or pests. When the problem is present across your whole lawn, it’s more likely to be a systemic problem—maintenance issues, drought, and other problems that would affect the whole lawn. Once we know what has damaged your lawn, we can address the issue, then use our lawn revival strategies to rejuvenate your yard.
Lawn Revival Techniques and Strategies
Overseeding
Don’t worry—overseeding doesn’t mean “seeding too much”; it means seeding over the existing lawn! When the lawn is sparse, we use a seed and soil technique—we spread new grass seeds, then apply a thin layer of topsoil to encourage growth.
Improving Soil Quality
Poor soil quality can have a negative impact on your lawn’s health. Here in Winnipeg, our soils are typically heavy clay soils; they’re dense in nutrients, but they can restrict root growth and make it difficult for water to make its way to the grass’s roots.
There are several ways we can improve the quality of your soil. We can start by taking a sample of your soil to a lab—this can help us better understand its chemical composition, which will help us select fertilizers for you to use.
Aerating your lawn, dethatching, and applying topsoil will all help us to improve overall soil quality. We’ll also share a number of techniques that can help you improve soil quality, such as using compost and allowing the grass blades you’ve mowed to decompose on your lawn.
Proper Watering Practices
Overwatering or underwatering your lawn can both lead to dead grass—improper grading can also lead to puddles, which can encourage the development of diseases and lead to overwatering.
When we revive your lawn, we’ll water it in the places we need to—and we won’t water it if overwatering is the problem. We’ll help you create a schedule for watering. We can even level sections of your lawn where water is pooling; all of this will help revive your lawn.
We’ll give you written watering instructions that you should follow to the letter—at this stage in the game, proper watering is the single most important thing you can do to revive your lawn.
Optimal Fertilization Methods
During the spring and fall, you should fertilize your lawn. Using the soil sample we’ve taken, we’ll be able to tell you which fertilizer is ideal for your soil type, as well as for the mix of grasses you have in your lawn. We’ll apply the fertilizer evenly over your lawn, lightly watering it, if necessary, to keep the fertilizer and soil moist. The fertilizer will give your grass—as well as any grass we’ve overseeded—the nutrients it needs to grow.Effective Weed and Pest Control
To revive your lawn, we have to deal with any weeds, pests, and diseases that might be harming it. The techniques we’ll use vary from infestation to infestation—we may apply weed control or pest control chemicals to your lawn.
Conclusion
Our goal isn’t just to revive your lawn—it’s to keep it as healthy as possible. We’ll give you detailed instructions on lawn care and visit regularly to help keep your lawn healthy.
Take advantage of our lawn care service in Winnipeg, and revive your dying lawn—call Cleanr today!