We all want to have a lush green lawn with perfect stripes on it, but making that into a reality is difficult if your grass happens to be more yellow than green.

If you find yourself in this situation what do you do?  How can you make sure your grass goes back to its normal color?

For starters it helps to know why the grass is going yellow in the first place.  Is it happening in one specific area or is it happening all over the lawn?  For instance if it hasn’t rained in weeks and it is very hot, you’ll notice the whole lawn going yellow because it isn’t getting enough water.

This is an obvious problem to spot and it has an obvious solution as well.  Water it when the sun isn’t on it and make sure the lawn is well aerated so you can let the water do more than just sit on the surface.  This is also the case if the soil underneath the lawn is very compact.  Once again this means the water cannot sink down to the roots to nourish and feed them and enable the grass to grow readily.

In other cases homeowners with dogs will notice their lawn is going yellow and patchy in certain places.  If the dog urinates on the grass regularly the acid in the urine will damage the grass and turn it green.  Make sure you don’t get this problem by training your dog to go elsewhere – ideally in a specific spot all the time.

Another good bet is to dethatch your lawn on a regular basis.  When it is mowed and grass clippings are left behind, these contribute to thatch.  This means the grass is basically getting choked and cannot grow to its fullest extent.  Get all the moss and clippings out and mow it regularly to keep it healthy and short.  This also allows more sun to get to the grass.  While you don’t want the lawn to get scorched you can certainly aim to give it a certain amount of sun.

If you have lots of yellow patches and sections on your lawn you should also take a soil test.  Do this in several places and compare the results as they could indicate your soil is lacking in something.  Depending on what pH your results show you, you should add the appropriate fertilizer to ensure you get better results.  Lime or sulfur is ideal as they will bring your lawn’s pH back into balance.

As you can see it isn’t enough to pick a treatment and start working on your lawn without knowing why it is going yellow.  It could be going yellow all over or it might only be affected in one or two patches.  This information alone can be of great help, so make sure you work hard to find the solution you want.  Very soon your lawn will be turning back to a lush green once more.

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