The Grass Doctor

My bent grass lawn is turning brown?

The bent grass seed instructions were followed to the letter, now after a month the lawn is turning brown in spots. No dos or cats on the lawn, so that's not it. Fungus treatment does not seem to help. Seed states after hardening off, the lawn can be watered "once or twice a month" and stops growing at about 4-5 inches height. HELP!? The tiny lawn in question is near Pismo Beach, California, about 3 miles inland. Foggy, coastal influence, otherwise 7-10 inches of rain a year.

Public Comments

1. This is a month old bent grass lawn and you're no longer watering daily? Resume watering immediately and hope you can save it. Where are you in the world? Bentgrass is a cool season species... if you planted it in the Northern Hemisphere, it's likely to be difficult to establish this time of year.
2. Sounds like the blight fungus.. Do NOT water in the evenings.. Especially Newly Seeded Grass.. New lawns are more succeptible to funguses.. Water only in the Pre-Noon hours.. You do not want moisture on your new lawn during the evening hours.. That allows funguses to thrive.. If it is Psylium Blight, you may notice white cobweb looking stuff near the lower end of the the grass stems.. You will only see these in the early morning hours before the sun comes up.. Within just a few hours the grass turns brown and dies.. Do Not water in the evenings... Best Advice for Newly Planted lawns.. 1st hand experience ;)
3. Water it in every spot for about 35 to 40 minutes a day. Not once or twice a month. The grass will get dry if you do that....We're doing that with our new grass because we had rocks in that spot and we put the rocks where we are going to put cement there. Oh, yeah! Don't have your air conditioner not work in the summer. That just happened to us. For two whole months we didn't have air!! And the same day we got it fixed, our dog died.
4. I work at a huge lawncare company. You need to water 3 times a week for about 20 min in each zone. Watering for 45 min is only going to cause more issues (more fungus). You either A: have a fungus and need to slow down the watering... or B: are in drought stress.... in which case you need to water 2-3 x a week. It being a mth old means the root system isnt quite matured. You probably are suffering option B: