The white on the grass is frost, and the brown shapes that appear days after someone crosses it are the crushed, dead blades left where feet pressed the frozen lawn flat. The fix costs nothing: keep off the lawn whenever…
Mushrooms and toadstools on a lawn are the fruiting bodies of a fungus feeding on dead material in the soil, and in almost every case the grass itself is unharmed. Pull or brush them off by hand on a dry…
The Clumps on the Lawn Are Coming From Under the Deck The cut has gone scruffy. The mower drops clots of grass in little piles, the finish looks uneven and ragged a day later, and the collection bag fills half…
Moss Is the Symptom, Not the Enemy You walk back in from the lawn, and the green underfoot turns out to be half moss. The quick fix is simple and it costs nothing: rake or scarify the moss out now,…
A thin, worn lawn after summer is not finished, it is just short of plants, and sowing fresh seed into the existing grass now is the cheapest way to thicken it. The trick is getting the seed down onto bare…
A hard, low “winter cut” does not tidy a lawn for the season, it strips away the leaf the grass needs to feed itself through the cold and leaves the door open to moss and disease. Keep cutting while the…
Blue or white smoke on start-up almost always means oil has reached a place it should not be, usually after the mower was tipped on its side or the oil was overfilled, not that the engine is finished. Switch it…
Creeping cinquefoil is the low, flat weed with leaves split into five toothed leaflets and small yellow flowers, and it throws out long runners that root every few inches and shrug off most lawn weedkillers. The way to beat it…
If your lawn looks ragged and pale a day after cutting, with frayed grey or brown tips instead of clean ends, the mower is tearing the grass rather than slicing it, and a dull blade is almost always the reason.…
Worm casts are small coils of muddy soil that a few earthworm species push up onto the lawn, and they turn slippery and smear across the grass the moment a mower or a boot goes over them wet. The fix…
