I've been out of town for a few weeks. We had a bunch of rain in Indiana while I was gone. I was expecting to see a lush, green lawn when I got home. Instead, my lawn is green with a bunch of brown grass stems throughout the lawn. Anyone else in my neighborhood might be okay with it, but I don't like seeing the brown stems. I don't recall ever seeing my lawn look like this. However, my lawn has been on a 2-year makeover. Previously, I had Kentucky Bluegrass. When I tilled my lawn and started over a couple of years ago, I used a Bluegrass and ? mixture. I forget what the other grass is. Is it perhaps the other grass I'm seeing as the brown stems?

 

Without a picture or you identifying the brown stems it's almost impossible to identify a plant based on "brown stems".

Was your lawn mowed during the several weeks you were gone? Is there any pattern to the browning? How much is brown and how much healthy green grass? Have you fertilized this year or used any other lawn treatments?

 

I'll post a picture tomorrow. To answer some of your questions, it was mowed regularly while I was gone. There is no pattern (it's not a fungus or anything like that). There's healthy green grass everywhere among the brown "stalks" for lack of a better description. I have fertilized this year.

I suspect it's the grass that was mixed in with the Kentucky Bluegrass. There's what looks like Kentucky Bluegrass everywhere. Then mixed in with the Kentucky Bluegrass is what appears to be the stalk of a grass plant equal in length to the Kentucky Bluegrass blades. Probably should have stuck with 100% KB when I seeded. It's disappointing as I have worked for 2 years to get my lawn back to a thick growth. Now it's thick with grass blades and grass stalks as tall at blades (don't know that that makes sense).

 

I suppose it could have been a annual rye grass in the seed mix. It germinates and grows fast so it's sometimes used to get something green fast and help prevent erosion. Since it's a cool season grass it's often done and brown by the time summer arrives.

 

That's sounds right (rye grass) as far as what was mixed in. If I over-seed from now on with only Kentucky Bluegrass will the rye eventually be crowded out or am I stuck with it?

 

That's one of the nice things about annual rye. It germinates & grows fast in cool conditions but dies out once the temperatures rise. If you don't mow it and let it go to seed you could see it in the fall or next spring but if the lawn was mowed that's it for the rye. That's why it's often blended in with other, slower germinating and slower growing grasses. It comes with a built in self destruct.

 

I appreciate your input. Glad it did what it was supposed to do, now it can go away.