Spots of dry and brown sod may mar the beauty of your lush lawn, leaving you devastated. That’s when you start wondering, is my sod dying? It’s important to note; whether your sod is a week or a year old, dead sod has the same symptoms. Read this article to the end to know signs your sod is dying.

Change of color, texture, and lose of connection to the ground are signs indicating that your sod is dying. Unhealthy grass may change from green to brown, yellow, gray or dusty, yellow-brown, or bright green. Additionally, if you notice your grass changing its texture to dry, curled, slimy, or crispy, it means it’s dying.

Also read: Can You Lay Sod Over Gravel?

What Does Dead Sod Look Like?

Here are the various symptoms that may help you know when your sod is dying:

1. Dying sod may appear brown, yellow, dusty, or bright green.

Your sod may turn brown and die due to dryness, insect feeding, excessive heat, drought, or soil compaction problems. In most cases, brown grass requires enough watering to bring it back to life.

Yellowing means your sod is dying due to excess dog urine, an overabundance of water, or a lack of essential nutrients. However, if your grass is dying due to mildew problems, it will appear dusty.

Additionally, excessive moisture in your grass for prolonged periods may encourage fungal attacks. Your sod will suddenly turn bright green once mold and other microorganisms attack the roots. Your lawn will die if you fail to fix the problem.

2. Your sod may be dead if it appears dry, crispy, slimy, or curled.

If you fail to water your sod for prolonged periods, it will dry out and appear crispy or brittle. The grass will eventually die of drought stress. Although watering may solve this problem, over-watering may subject your grass to fungal attacks, hence turning slimy.

Also, healthy grass has straight blades, while the edges of dying turf appear curled. The cause of this problem is a lack of essential nutrients or feeding your lawn with excessive nutrients.

3. Dead grass has a loose connection to the ground.

You can tell your sod is dead by checking the connection between the soil and roots. To do this, try to pull out a section of grass. If it resists, your grass is alive but dormant and needs the care to revive it. However, if the grass comes out without resistance, it’s dead, and your lawn requires resodding.

How To Keep Sod from Dying

Here are the things you can do to keep your grass alive;

• Water your lawn properly and frequently.
• Fertilize the soil before sodding, then 60 days after laying your sod.
• Keep children and dogs off the lawn. Also, avoid walking on the newly installed sod.
• Mow your lawn after the roots establish fully but don’t cut it too short. This exercise should be after the fifth or sixth week.

Related: How to Lay Sod

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q: How can you tell if sod is bad?

A: The first sign that you have bad or poor-quality sod is the appearance of an orange moss-like cover on your grass. Sometimes you’ll notice mushrooms popping up on your sod, which means your turf suffers from a fungus attack.

Q: Is sod dead if it turns yellow?

A: In most cases, yellow sod is not dead. Grass turns yellow if you fail to water it immediately after installation. It may also change color if you don’t feed it with enough nutrients or has dog urine burns. If you don’t fix the problem through proper irrigation, the yellow sod will die.

Final Thoughts

So, what are the signs your sod is dying?

You can tell if your grass is dying by checking the color, texture, and connection between roots and soil. Dying sod may change from green to brown, dusty, yellow-brown, or bright green. Additionally, if you notice your grass changing its texture to dry, curled, slimy, or crispy, it means it’s dying. You can keep it alive by watering, fertilizing, and staying off the lawn.