You probably have your lawn dethatched at least once a year or every two years. Whether you do it yourself or employ for dethatching else to do it, the process leaves your lawn looking very unappealing for about a week until new growth appears. Here’s why the lawn looks bad after dethatching and what to do for reviving your lawn.
Reason of Bad Look After Dethatching
Naturally grown grass on your lawn requires organic care for looking and staying beautiful. But dethatching can make your lawn look bad. And the main reason why your lawn looks bad after dethatching is the damage caused to your lawn during dethatching. Besides
Damage to the Soil
Dethatching at the wrong time when the soil is soft due to rain can cause damage to the soil below and make holes in the ground during dethatching. Those holes, if not taken care of, will look odd after dethatching. And if new seeds are not seeded there and if those holes are not closed properly, then after dethatching, your lawn will look bad and unpleasant. Besides, if your lawn soil is covered with a thick layer of thatch for a long time, you should fertilize your ground after dethatching. A thick thatch layer can block sunlight and water storing in the ground and can reduce ground fertility. And reduced ground fertility reduces soil strength and damages the soil.
Uprooting Healthy Grass
Uprooting also makes your lawn look bad after dethatching. Without prior experience of dethatching, you may end up uprooting healthy grass during dethatching. It is the most common damage caused during dethatching. Uprooting healthy grass is connected with a dense layer of thatch level. If your lawn has a dense layer of thatch, it means your lawn grass is not healthy enough to build deep roots in the ground. And when you start dethatching your lawn, those weak grasses are uprooted along with thatch and debris. Some of the places with no grass at all do not give any pleasant view after dethatching. Another major reason for uprooted healthy grass is the use of a power rake with a deep dethatching setting. A power rake is a powerful machine that can uproot healthy grass as well as soil too during dethatching. So it is recommended to carefully use a power rake during dethatching and be careful about the height adjustment of the power rake during dethatching.
Dethatching Imbalance in Areas
Dethatching too deep in a specific area is needed because, in some areas of a lawn, thatch level is relatively denser than other areas. And if you cannot identify those areas and dethatch to maintain the same level of thatch built up, then even after dethatching, you will notice unequal growth of grass. And if you dethatch too much in specific areas, then you will see grassless spots on your lawn. In both cases, you will find your lawn ugly after dethatching. So it is recommended to look carefully to find which area requires more dethatching than other areas.
Using the Wrong Machine
Using the wrong machine to dethatch can lead to an ugly look of your lawn after dethatching. Some dethatching machines are more powerful than others. And using the wrong one can cause damage to soil and grass, leaving an ugly look on the lawns. For example, a dethatcher is less powerful than a power rake, and a dethatcher has smaller tines compared with a power rake. A power rake is suggested to use for denser thatch level dethatching. And a dethatcher is suggested to use for thinner thatch level dethatching. If you use a power rake for dethatching of half-inch dense thatch level, then it is most likely to have a bad look on your lawn after dethatching.
Using Wrong Depth of Dethatching
If you are using a power rake for dethatching, there should be a height adjustment knob that allows dethatching from a different height of the machine. And selecting the wrong height of power rake can lead to light dethatching or serious damage to the grass and soil. That also makes your lawn look bad.
Not Proper Clean Due to Obstacle
If your lawn has ponds or trees in it, then cleaning thatches from your lawn can be hard in some areas close to those obstacles. If you are using a power rake and a lawnmower for your lawn, those machines cannot dethatch and clean properly in areas close to obstacles. And if you end up without a properly dethatched lawn, your lawn would not look nice after dethatching.
Dethatching in Improper Time
Grasses do not grow in all seasons. Warm-season grasses only grow in the warm season and cold ones in the cold season. If you dethatch without considering the season, then the grass will take longer to grow back, and the lawn will look ugly for a long time.
What to Do Now?
Does the Lawn Look Brown?
The lawn may look brown if you dethatch too early in the season. The soil turns brown due to the lack of protection of grass. It is suggested not to dethatch too early in the season.
If the Grass Looks Weak and Breaking
Excessive use of fertilizer causes this mush look. In cases like that, do not use fertilizer any further and try to.
If the Lawn Looks Patchy
If your lawn looks patchy, you can address the problem with overseeding after dethatching. Overseeding is a common step taken to cover grass fewer areas after dethatching.
If the Lawn Looks Yellow
Bright green sedge with yellow border is a weed type that looks like grass and is a big problem for the lawns. And to remove these yellow grass looking weeds from your lawn for good, you should do the following actions.
- Overseeding after dethatching and
- Regularly mowing for a few months, your
- Using targeted fertilizers in lawn areas with yellow weeds.
- Turf quality decrease
A dense layer of thatch usually contains more nutrients than the soil itself that causing grassroots to grow upward instead of going down deep in the soil. And if you want to solve the swallow root problem of the grass, then use fertilizer to provide your lawn soil with enough nutrients for the grass.
Grass Turn Dry
After dethatching, grasses in some areas turns dry due to a lake of water in the ground. Dethatching makes the soil visible to the sunlight; that visibility of sunlight swiftly reduces soil moisture that in turn makes the grasses dry rapidly. And to save your lawn from this problem, you have to frequently water your lawn.
Bottom Line
If lawn looks bad after dethatching, know that dethatching is a stressful process for both the lawn and the person who is dethatching. Without the proper knowledge, dethatching can leave unhealthy grass with a bad look. After reading this article now, you know both the reason for the bad look and the actions for looking it beautiful again.