Doug Amerman



Hello Doug,

Only one photo came through. From that one it looks like an animal was digging in the grass – likely a squirrel.

Brown areas in the lawn at this time of year have several potential causes – it could be dead grass plants, grass still dormant, grub damage, or a winter fungal disease like snow mold. If it is grub damage, the brown leaf masses will lift right off the soil. Snow mold is pretty easy to identify and your brown patch does not look like snow mold. https://extension.psu.edu/turfgrass-diseases-gray-snow-mold-causal-fungus-typhula-incarnata

The brown patches are likely dormant or dead grass. If they are dormant, they will green up as the weather warms. If they are dead, you may need to top seed them to repair the lawn. Here is a reference for spring seeding: https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/ay/ay-20-w.pdf

Concerning the area under the trees: If a soil test showed the pH to be too low, liming is the correct action to raise the pH of the soil, but please don’t expect this to strengthen the turf grass under the tree canopy. As the trees have grown taller and thicker, they are likely causing denser shade on the lawn. Grass plants are a natural prairie plant. They require a whole day’s sunshine to thrive. Even “shade tolerant” grass species require 4 -6 hours of sunshine or dappled shade per day. So in order to re-establish lawn under the trees, you are likely going to need to add lime to the soil and have the trees thinned and limbed up to provide more sun exposure. If you do not want to do this, you may want to consider a more shade tolerant ground cover planting.

Here is an article on low pH in turf grass areas: https://extension.psu.edu/liming-turfgrass-areas

Here are some thoughts on lawn alternatives for shade: https://www.canr.msu.edu/resources/shady_lawn_alternatives

Hope this helps.