BackyardBooster.com is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission at no added cost to you. Learn more.
No one wants a brown lawn. People may think your grass is diseased, has pet urine, or that you just don’t care to upkeep it. Fortunately, we know that you do care. And we’ve created a guide on how to make your lawn green and thick!
We all want greener grass, so let’s find out how to make our lawns green and thick.
How to Make Lawn Green and Thick
A healthy lawn is a happy lawn. Lawns are an integral part of our houses, gardens, and lifestyles. A beautiful lawn does not need a storm of chemicals.
Instead, maintaining a beautiful, lush lawn requires consistent lawn care year-round. This means fertilization, watering, mowing, dethatching, and aeration to make your lawn green and thick.
With the appropriate knowledge and tools, you can help your lawn recover from nasty diseases/pests and keep them away year-round. But, even with these measures, other changes in soil or gardening routines may be necessary.
If your lawn is not yet planted, or you’ve decided it’s time to restart your lawn from scratch, then check out our article on the Best Grass Types for your Backyard.
Let’s review 8 key methods to make your lawn green and thick!
1. Regular Maintenance
In the same way that regular oil changes and maintenance can keep your car running smoothly for years, regular maintenance of your lawn can keep it alive and healthy all year long.
You can handle the maintenance yourself or pay someone else to do it. Either way, you’ll need to make sure it gets done.
Regular maintenance of your lawn includes consistent mowing, fertilization, use of herbicides, and annual liming (depending on the soil pH).
- Mowing: Grab your lawn mower. Mowing your lawn regularly will help your grass blades grow in thicker. Your intervals for mowing will depend on the lawn species and the time of year—grass tends to grow slower in the winter months.
- Fertilization: Many experts recommend fertilizing your lawn 2-4 times a year. See Fertilizer and Spot Treatments.
- Herbicides: Weeds are common in lawns. You can use herbicides to get rid of them before they become a more serious issue.
- Annual liming: Many experts recommend testing your soil’s pH (soil test) once a year and liming your lawn as necessary. Do not lime your lawn without confirming the pH of the existing soil—this usually ends up causing more harm than good to your lawn.
Tips for Maintenance
- Make sure your check your lawn mower blades regularly. Mowing with dull mower blades could actually cause damage to the blades of grass.
- Grass will grow faster in the spring and summer months. You’ll have to ramp up the mowing effort during this time of the year.
- Save your grass clippings and repurpose them. Try using them for your compost pile!
- Maintenance requirements are different for types of grass. Know the difference between warm-season grass vs cool-season grass and research the proper requirements for each.
- Always perform a soil test before applying chemical treatments.
- If you can’t fertilize often, try looking for a slow-release fertilizer to increase the duration of performance.
2. Fertilizers and Spot Treatments
Fertilizer is one of the most essential components to creating and maintaining a beautiful green lawn. However, many homeowners neglect to fertilize because they don’t know which fertilizer or how much should be applied.
For greener grass, your lawn needs 3 important nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium.
Using a proper balance of fertilizer will make your grass greener – plain and simple.
However, applying lawn fertilizer incorrectly can cause more damage than good.
We recommend the following options if you’re looking for fertilizer to feed your lawn.
Recommendations for Fertilizer
Scotts GreenMax Lawn Food
- Scotts Green Max Lawn Food is a dual-action fertilizer and iron formula that feeds your lawn and…
- This lawn care product contains 5% iron, a micronutrient that enhances the greening process for fast…
- Apply this fertilizer plus iron supplement to any grass type in the spring, summer, or fall
- Guaranteed not to stain concrete, driveways, or other surfaces surrounding your lawn (when used as…
- One 33.33 lb. bag of Scotts Green Max Lawn Food covers 10,000 sq. ft.
Miracle-Gro Water Soluble Lawn Food
- Instantly feeds all grass types
- Encourages a soft green carpet of grass that will be the pride of the neighborhood
- Feeds up to 7,200 sq. ft.
- The fast way to a thick, green lawn
- For use with the Miracle-Gro Garden Feeder
Safer Brand Lawn Restore Fertilizer
- Revitalizes lawn to a thick turf by strengthening root systems
- Lawns will green up within 3 to 5 days
- Promotes a robust root system for a healthier lawn
- Provides effective year-round care by helping plants withstand heat, cold and drought stresses
- Covers up to 6,250 sq ft
Recommendations for Spot Treatments
If you’ve still got some dry and brown patches (after regular fertilization), some other products can help you bring these areas back to life.
There are several reputable brands out there that offer great spot lawn or soil treatment products. Based on personal results or advice from friends and colleagues, below are some of the recommended options:
Scotts EZ Seed Patch and Repair Sun and Shade
- Grow grass anywhere, guaranteed (subject to proper care) with this revolutionary seeding mix
- Grass seed: Scotts best high performance seed; Mulch: absorbs 6X its weight in water and expands to…
- Fertilizer: Exclusive controlled release technology feeds seedlings to jumpstart growth
- Tackifier: Helps keep seed from washing away; Protectant: Helps keep seedlings safe from harmful…
- Grows in full sun and dense shade, high traffic areas and on slopes; seeds up to 225 sq. ft
Pennington One Step Complete Sun & Shade Bare Spot Grass Seed
- Sunlight Exposure: Full-Sun
- Combination of premium Smart Seed grass seed, professional-grade fertilizer, and mulch.
- Everything you need to grow lush, thick grass is pre-mixed and ready to use
- Covers up to 150 sq. ft. with 7-14 day seed germination
Andersons HumiChar Organic Soil Amendment
- HumiChar is an organic, carbon-based soil amendment containing 50% high-quality humic acid and 50%…
- Improve your soil health, lawn health, plant health, and reduce the use of fertilizers
- Easy to apply spherical, uniform, low dust formulation –Dispersible Granule, or “DG” Technology is…
- Environmentally friendly, OMRI listed. User friendly; can be blended with fertilizers or used alone
- Not for sale in California or Oregon
Keep in mind that organic fertilizer or all-natural fertilizer is usually safer to use but may not be as effective in their result. This is something to consider, particularly if you have kids or pets.
3. Proper Watering
The best time of day to water your lawn is in the morning.
Watering in the morning helps the lawn soil retain some of the water before it is evaporated by the sun. But also makes sure the soil isn’t left moist for too long.
Watering at night often produces a moist environment in which lawn diseases can develop.
Your lawn, on average, needs at least 1″-1.5″ of water per week. On average, this means you’ll need to run your sprinklers (or hose) three days per week for 20-30 minutes.
You’ll need to scale back during the winter months, particularly if you live in a wet climate.
If you notice that your lawn isn’t responding well to your watering schedule, then perform a test.
All sprinkler systems are different, so you could be watering more than you think.
To perform a check, try the screwdriver test:
- Water lawn deeply for 20 minutes.
- Wait 30-45 minutes.
- Drive a screwdriver (or another thin tool) into the wet soil.
- Check the depth of the wet soil. The moist soil should extend approximately 6 inches deep.
- If less than 6 inches, try watering for 25 minutes the next day and perform steps 2-4.
- If much more than 6 inches, try reducing watering to 15 minutes the next day and perform steps 2-4.
- Find the ideal watering duration to get soil moisture down to 6 inches deep.
If you find that increased watering isn’t getting you the depth of moisture you need, then you’ll need to consider aerating your lawn.
Tip: you’ll need a different watering schedule if you’re watering new grass seed.
4. Aerate Your Lawn
Even if the soil is full of nutrients or has the correct pH level, compacted soil could be the culprit for your lawn issues. Compacted soil gives the grass roots no space to develop, which inhibits the grass’s ability to grow.
The perfect way to deal with this problem is to aerate your lawn. Aeration is a process in which holes are created through the top compacted layer, allowing air, water, and nutrients to penetrate deeper into the soil.
This helps to get revitalize your existing lawn by getting your grass thicker and stronger.
There are a few ways to do this using different types of equipment.
- Aeration shoes
- Manual equipment
- Gas or electric tillers
You should aerate your lawn every 1 to 2 years, depending on your soil’s condition. For example, if you have clayey soils that are easily compacted, you may need to aerate twice per year.
The timing of the aeration is also important. For warm-season grasses, you should aerate in the late spring. For cool-season grasses, you should aerate in the early spring or early fall.
5. Prepare Lawn for Weather Conditions
Weather is one of the biggest contributing factors to how lively or lifeless your lawn will look.
High humidity can cause weeds to grow and grass to wilt. In addition, high summer heat and drought can lead to insect infestations and dry patches.
Mixtures of heat and moisture can provide an environment for diseases to develop. And cold temperatures or snowy conditions can leave your lawn with snow mold or unrecoverable barren patches.
Spring and fall are a great time to start taking proactive measures for your lawn.
Fall is usually a perfect time to put some effort into figuring out what may go wrong with your lawn and implementing treatments to fight it.
Using fall and early winter to fertilize your lawn generally promotes root growth for better results by the time spring rolls around.
Taking an active role in anticipating potential issues with weather will make your lawn green and thick.
6. Fight Pet Urine
Pet urine is known to make grass yellow and unhealthy looking.
Knowing how to prevent pet urine from killing grass will save your lawn from unattractive discoloration. If you love letting your pet outside, you might have some issues with burning grass.
Grass burn is a common phenomenon, as the pet’s urine can kill the grass. Lawn burn is caused by high levels of nitrogen in your pet’s urine.
A minimal quantity of nitrogen can be useful for grass, but an enormous amount can discoloration and dry patches.
You can prevent your pet’s pee from destroying your grass by changing your pet’s diet, managing where they urinate, and spot treatments.
There are even supplements you can give to your dog that will help reduce the levels of nitrogen in their urine. But you should check with your veterinarian before giving your pet any supplements.
You can also control your lawn by replacing the existing grass with urine-resistant grass or using a treatment to restore the grass.
The right fertilizer will add green colors to your yellow spots, while good watering and irrigation will revive the region.
7. Remove Pests and Unwanted Insects
One factor in lawn maintenance that is less easy to manage is the insects and wildlife that come to consider it their home. The easiest way to handle lawn pests is to identify correctly identify them and get to know their life cycles.
By understanding what types of pests you’re getting, you can find the proper treatment to help keep those pests away.
Many grass pests can be prevented if the lawn is handled daily, i.e., regular grazing, mowing, clearing of weeds and moss, and watering.
Safer Brand has put together a great article describing 20 Common Lawn Pests and How to Fight Them.
8. Get Professional Help for A Diseased Lawn
Professionals certainly know how to make your lawn green and thick. There’s no shame in getting some help.
If you see discolored grass or other disease symptoms, try to identify the particular disease first.
Common diseases include snow mold, summer patch, red thread, brown patch, dollar spot, gray leaf spot lawn disease, etc.
Contact the local lawn disease specialist in your area. If you bring in a picture to your local lawn specialist, they’ll likely be able to provide a solution on the spot.
A healthier lawn is a happier lawn!
Conclusion – How to Make Your Lawn Green and Thick
When you’ve done whatever you can to make your lawn green and thick, you’ll want to make sure it remains that way.
Getting green and healthy grass can be hard, but it can be even harder to keep your grass green.
Maintenance sounds challenging, but if you care about your lawn’s condition, it can be quite rewarding. Plus, it’ll become a routine if you start doing it daily, and you’ll soon have the most fantastic lawn on the block.
If your grass still isn’t’ growing well after taking all the appropriate measures, there’s a chance that your grass type isn’t meant for your climate. So you may need to start from scratch with a grass type that is suitable for your climate.
If all else fails, or you’re looking for less maintenance work, artificial grass is always a great option for those who want green grass without all of the lawn care.
Go get that lush green lawn you’ve always wanted!
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I Need to Aerate My Lawn?
Yes, you should aerate your lawn every 1 to 2 years, depending on your soil’s condition.
Clay soil tends to compact more quickly than other soil mixtures. If you have clayey soils, you may need to aerate twice per year.
If your lawn is heavily compacted, aeration will help you get water, air, and nutrients get back into the soil to restore your lawn.
When Should I Aerate the Lawn?
You should never aerate dormant lawns, which means never in the winter. For warm-season grasses, you should aerate in the late spring. For cool-season grasses, you should aerate in the early spring or early fall.
Seed vs Sod: What Are the Benefits of Each?
The seeding method is just as it sounds. You have a bare earthen area, and you plant grass seed to get your lawn growth. Sod is a bit different as it is a rolled blanket of mature grass that is meant to be transplanted onto your lawn. Here are some benefits of each.
Benefits of Seed
The most prominent benefit associated with seed is the low initial cost. If you cannot spend a lot of money, spreading grass seeds is a good option. Apart from saving money on the seed, you will also save money on labor expenses because it’s fairly simple to do.
Grass seed also gives you the freedom of having many options for grass types. Different grass types bring different looks and feels to your yard.
Between online shopping and your local hardware store, you’ll be able to purchase pretty much any type of grass seed you’re looking for.
Seed is fairly easy and inexpensive, but it could take years before your lawn reaches its full form. You’ll have to make sure you keep off of your lawn during the initial growing months.
Benefits of Sod
While not as affordable as seed, sod can provide instant results, which means an instant return on your investment.
No need to wait months or years for your grass to grow thick. It takes only about 2 to 3 weeks for the sod to root and establish.
Another benefit associated with sod is that it requires less watering when planted. As it’s first growing, you’ll need to water your seeded lawn up to 4 times per day!
With sod, since you’re transplanting an already mature lawn, you won’t need to water nearly as much.
Are Lawn Mushrooms Poisonous?
Not all mushrooms that grow on your lawn are poisonous, but some can be.
It can be hard for the untrained eye to see the difference, so it’s always a good idea to pull them out and discard them appropriately to ensure that your kids or pets don’t consume them.