Disappointing lawn.... now what?

[Thembe]

Hi

My dogs decimated my lawn with all their playing so I bought  a load of Daltons soil specifically sold to help establish new lawns. Wheelbarrowed it all in, raked and evened and compacted a little and then sowed the rye grass/fescue seed mix from Bunnings. Needless to say, I first fenced the area off to keep big paws out! Sowing was done mid-December 2019.

Following daily watering, fertilising and high setting mows, the grass was looking excellent until about 2 weeks ago. Suddenly brown, dead patches have appeared and nothing helps. 

Do I need to resow? Shoud I go for kikuya seed this time? (as you can see some of the original kikuya is starting to spread through and that's fine by me, but I can't wait until it takes over in its own time). Do I need to dig it all over before reseeding? Why has this happened?

I'm a newbie to this game and am not aiming for a perfect garden, but I do want it to be tidy and the lawn fairly resilient against dogs playing rough 'n tumble on it. 

I would certainly appreciate some advice (am based on the flat in Orewa).

Cheers

[Jason]

Hi @Thembe,

Let me tag our resident lawn care expert in @Adam_W for his thoughts. In the meantime you might want to take a look at his advice on another recent post - https://www.workshop.com.au/t5/Garden/HELP-Sir-Walter-Lawn-doing-it-tuff/m-p/36013#M4043 - the advice for you might be similar...

Welcome to the Workshop community. We're really looking forward to reading more about your projects and plans around the house and garden. Feel free to post whenever you need a hand with anything as we have amazing members sharing expertise and inspiration on the site every day.

Jason

[Adam_W]

Hi @Thembe you mention the patches appeared really quickly? Sounding to me like it's actually a grub attack of some sort or another.
Not much you can do about most of them as they tend to appear in large numbers really quickly (almost overnight) do damage & then vanish.

Towards dusk go and have a look at some of the lawn where dead meets live & see if you can notice any grubs that look like this.

There is another white grub that's in the soil but it would be unusual for it to do so much damage over a wide area all at once.
You can either apply a granulated or hose-on grub-kill type product or use the more eco-safe neem oil that was in the link above.
Once you know you've sorted the actual root-cause of the problem maybe just use an over-sowing seed mix. Often sold as repair blends. They're a mix of grass varieties and then over-time the one that is best suited to your spot becomes the dominant one.
Personally I probably wouldn't over-sow with kikuyu. It just goes a wee bit too crazy & needs too much mowing. Also pretty thirsty. There are some nice compact varieties of kikuyu out there but the ones in packets tend to be more the vigorous 'pasture' grass.
Hope this helps & let us know if you need any more info.

[Thembe]

Hello @Adam_W , thanks for your reply. I spent sometime on hands and knees at dusk looking for grubs as shown in the link, but found none. (Also fyi I am in Auckland, NZ)

The mix I used initially consisted of rye grass and fescue. Since I still have some left over, should I use that to sow again? Although I still don't have a clue what is causing the problem