Having a beautiful, healthy lawn definitely improves any home’s appeal, but getting that beautiful green color can take some work!
It may be sunny, but your grass can still turn yellow (which is not as pleasant as bright Green).
Fortunately, there are steps you can take to turn your grass back to green again.
- You should be watering, mowing and fertilizing your lawn in the summer.
- You should be raking your grass in the fall to prevent any leaves from suffocating it.
- In spring, you should take care to aerate your soil or the lawn may die off.
While you do an amazing job maintaining your lawn beautiful in every season, you may get off schedule with your maintenance from time to time.
That may be when you notice the yellow patches on your lawn.
The good news is that you can revive your grass with a few steps.
Can Yellow Grass Turn Green Again
There’s a whole bunch of reasons your lawn could go yellow.
This could affect parts of your lawn or the entire lawn. Grass that is light green or yellow is sick.
Sometimes it’s hard to figure out where to start as all lawns are unique.
But, once you identify the source of the yellow grass, you can fix it and have green grass again in no time.
Some causes of discoloration include improper lawn care, insect populations, or deficiencies in the soil.
What Makes Your Grass Turn Yellow?
There are a few reasons your colorful lawn may start to turn yellow.
Here are some of the reasons why.
3. Drought
During the summer, there is limited rainfall, humidity, and lots of sunshine.
Therefore, seeing a lawn turn yellow during the sumner is normal.
2. Waterlogged soils
When you have too much water, air spaces become limited and that means there is little oxygen in the soil.
The root development will slow down, or roots will begin to rot.
A different scenario might be that the roots grow close to the surface, and that limits nutrient, oxygen, and water uptake.
So the grass dies for lack of nutrients and eventually gets yellow.
3. Lawn diseases
A different cause of a yellow lawn is lawn diseases.
You can diagnose a lawn disease if your lawn has small yellow patches that are growing bigger over time or are visible from lower to the ground.
Your common lawn diseases are lawn fungi or dollar spots.
4. Dog urination spots
If you have a dog and see a hidden area in your lawn that is becoming yellow, your four-legged friend is likely responsible.
Urine has high nitrogen compounds that can damage grass and frequently create yellow spots.
5. Under fertilization
Like any other plant, grasses need nutrients for healthy growth.
Just like any plant, if you do not provide grasses with the proper nutrients, you will see the leaves of the grasses turn yellow.
If you do not supply the proper nutrients to grasses, it will also become yellow depending on the season.
6. Overfertilization
When you put fertilizer on your yard, that’s good : But like everything else, too much is toxic.
When you apply an excessive amount of fertilizer, the fertilizer will contain nitrogen salts, which will burn the leaves of the grass.
If you see brown leaf blades on your turfgrass, you should consider stopping adding fertilizer to the grass until the blades recover.
7. Poor lawn maintenance
While you might be putting in hard work keeping your lawn nice, you could be doing something incorrectly.
For example – If you mow your grass too close to the soil, you expose the ground to the heat, meaning higher evaporation, and less water for your grass.
For this reason, the grass turns yellow.
This is also true for neglected lawns. If you leave the leaves that fell on the grass during the fall, it suffocates.
It does not get sunlight to make food, which allows the leaves to take on a yellow appearance.
Is Yellow Grass Dead Or Dormant?
Every grass has a dormant period in the year.
So when you see brown or yellow leaves on your grass, don’t panic; it is only dormant grass, not dead grass.
But how do you tell dead grass apart from dormant grass?
Dead grass
Dead grass is the type of grass that will not bounce back to life no matter how much you water, and feed it.
Usually, it is yellow, and so hard to distinguish that it looks like dormant grass.
For Dead Grass – Watering and fertilizer will do absolutely no good. The only option is to introduce new grass.
To find out if your grass is dead, grab a clump of sod and yanked it at the roots. If it pops out of the soil, it is probably dead.
Dormant grass
Dormant grass can revive very quickly with the proper management.
Typically, when the grass goes dormant, it is due to very hot or cold temperatures.
The leaves turn brown and appear dry.
But, when you water the soil and little fertilizer, in less than 2 weeks, you will have quality grass again.
Dormant grass will have white, firm roots.
How Long Does It Take Yellow Grass To Turn Green?
Once you’ve figured out the reason for your grass turning yellow, the next step is to take action.
That would mean adding enough water, nutrients, or insecticides to kill the insects feeding off your grass.
You’ll begin to see results in 1-2 weeks:
If you add a slow-release nitrogen fertilizer to your turf, you’ll begin to see the grass green-up in 1-2 weeks.
If your grass is desiccated and you’re watering it regularly, you’re likely looking at roughly a 7-10 day period to see the grass green-up.
However, in the case of grass that has roots that are dormant, it may take up to 4 weeks to back to life.
What Are The Different Methods Of Turning Yellow Grass Green?
There are a lot of reasons why your lawn might be going yellow, and there isn’t one answer.
For example, a dry lawn needs watering, an under-fertilized lawn needs nutrients.
Here is how to fix the problems with your lawn that may be involved in causing your yellowing leaves:
Curing fertilizer burns
Fixing your fertilizer burn is much more than just watering and sunshine for your lawn.
You want to first determine what the issue is and don’t escalate it.
If you’ve thrown some granular fertilizer all over, sweep it or vacuum it up.
Works really well – On your burnt area, apply some water. This dissolves the fertilizer and washes it into the soil to the roots.
Watering
As I previously stated, not enough water can cause your grass to yellow.
So how do you remedy this? You increase the frequency of watering the grass.
If you’ve neglected to water your grass regularly, you can slowly start adding water now, and try to water the area at least once each day, until it’s the rainy season.
When you add water, however, dont add more than suggested.
Adding nutrients
If you’re under fertilizing, this means that your lawn doesn’t have enough food to make and retain its deep green color.
Less nutrients in your soil means less chlorophyll in your grass, which translates to discoloration
If this happens, try to add some fertilizer – preferably organic fertlizers
Adding fertilzers enhances chlorophyll production in your grass, which means one of your beautiful, lush green, healthy looking lawn.
Always a good idea – Fertilzers also amend soil properties and processes like water retention, aeration and other condition that also promote healthier looking, lawns.
Treat your lawn diseases
It’s simple to treat grass or dollar spots that are infected with lawn fungus.
Just going to your nearest agro-shop you’ll find plenty of fungicides that can treat the fungal infections on your grass.
But, you have to be quick with your treatments to rescue your beautiful lawn.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can overwatering grass turn it yellow?
Yeah, like I said already, excess water leads to waterlogging. Plants growing in waterlogged soils will have shallow root systems.
By this I mean plants produce roots close to the surface in waterlogged soils, but they do not extend downwards.
As a result, they uptake fewer nutrients, oxygen, and water.
When your soils are waterlogged, your grass would turn green and remain green due to the lack of nutrient uptake.
Does grass turn yellow during winter?
Yeah. A nice green lawn, turns yellow in general during the winter.
Grasses turn yellow because of low levels of sunlight, mainly from snow cover and low temperature.
Don’t Panic – In most cases, the grass is dormant, so by taking the proper care you can treat and get the grass back to a nice green color in no time.
Final Thoughts
It’s the dream of every homeowner to have beautiful green lawns.
But you may have been struggling to maintain your lawn, and as a result, your grass is yellowing.
If that’s the case, don’t stress; it is much easier to make your yellow grass green again. But, the solution is more than just watering and giving the grass enough sunlight.
Be mindful of the health of your lawn. Some causes of yellowing grass can become irreversible if left unattended for too long.
One of these is dog urine, and you should buy urine-neutralizing treatment to save your grass.
Otherwise, if you have yellow patches on your lawn, you can still make your yellow grass green again in no time.