How to fix a patchy/muddy lawn
Patchy lawns are a nightmare, and can give a lot of distress to homeowners. No one wants any part of their home to be subpar. So having a muddy or patchy garden is less than ideal. If you have this problem, I'm sure you’ve wondered if there are ways to fix this, or maybe you’ve tried before and it didn't work. Regardless of your situation, we can help.
Throughout this blog we will look at not only ways to fix this, but causes. Looking at the root of the problem will help us to decipher the best method of rectifying the issues you are having in your garden. Let's never have garden embarrassment again.
Causes of a patchy or muddy lawn
Bad Drainage
A lot of gardens have awful drainage, not helped by the wet UK weather. This can cause a whole load of problems for you and your family. A patchy, muddy and uneven garden, to name a few. Bad drainage can be caused by many reasons. In the UK, a lot of gardens are full of clay, which will reduce the flow rate of the water, making it take a lot longer to drain, in turn leaving water to stand on your garden. Ultimately ruining the area of grass. Land drains are a popular solutions to this, and will help to increase to flow rate of water, getting rid of standing water.
Children
We love our kids using the garden, we want them to be playing outdoors as much as possible. However, overtime this can leave your garden in despair. Especially if your children have a football net in one area of the garden or something like that. It can cause a huge grassless patch in your lawn, and have other areas churned up from them running about.
We want to encourage play, especially outdoors, but this can be a nightmare is trying to maintain a nice lawn too. Fear not, in the section below, we have solutions to help you combat this.
Pets
Like children, pets play outside a lot too, along with using the outdoors as their toilet. Both of these reasons can cause patchiness in your garden. Whether your pet loves to run around in the same spot, tearing a track in the grass, or they just love to dig and destroy your garden, you aren't alone.
Additionally, pets using the toilet on the grass can cause two things. Whether your grass will burn and die leaving brown dead spots all around the garden. The other issue, the grass could grow at an increased rate in other areas, too. This can leave your grass a jungle of uneven growth and dead spots all around.
Shade
Having shade in your garden is a good thing; who doesn’t love sitting in the shade with a good book on a hot summer's day? Conversely, shade has it's negatives too. Grass needs to photosynthesize to grow, and without the sun, it cannot do that properly. It can also cause the area to stay damp, allowing moss to grow where it's not wanted. Therefore, as nice as shade can be a times, it can leave your garden in disarray; nobody wants that. We also don't want to get rid of what is causing the shade either.
Fixing a muddy or patchy lawn
You've read the above, and if your problems sound a lot like the above, you're in luck. The second part of this post is all about the three solutions to help combat all of the above problems. Before you think we are only going to suggest artificial grass, that’s not the case. There are other great methods too that we want to outline for you.
New grass
Good for fixing: Bad drainage
Taking up the old grass will leave you with a blank canvas, and you'll be able to create a drainage network in your garden. Once this is created, add soil and sand to level out your garden. Once your drainage is done and the area is at all levels, you can roll out the new grass. Get the grass (this can be ordered to your door or picked up from several merchants), then roll it out as close to each other as possible. Then keep the grass watered, and over time the roots will grow deep and the sections will work themselves together. Creating a stunning natural grass lawn.
Protect
Good for fixing: Pets wreaking havoc, children playing
This is the one that takes the most work. Keeping your grass looked after with watering, reseeding, fertiliser and sand to keep levelling it. While this will take a constant effort, it can be a rewarding one. If you want to keep the natural grass and have children and pets, it doesn't have to be a mess, but it will require a lot of maintenance to keep it looking good.
New garden
Best for fixing: Bad drainage, Pets wreaking havoc, children playing, shaded gardens
Maybe we are a bit biased, but installing a new artificial grass lawn will be the best option to combat all of the above issues. Installing artificial grass can fix the issues, but how? First of all, during the installation process, you can add drainage. However, if the base works are done well, this will help the drainage problems too. With artificial grass, especially if you have pets, you no longer need to worry about patchiness in the grass as artificial grass never fades or discolours. Along with that, it doesn't need any sunlight, therefore. No longer do you have to worry about your garden being too shaded in areas, causing uneven growth.
As you can read, there are many benefits that come with the artificial grass over a natural lawn for combatting the above problems. However, each fix we talk about above will work. It is very much down to personal preference. If you need any help with your decision on fixing garden nightmares. Please get in touch.