Why is my grass full of weeds/moss/clover and dead?

[lolil]

What has happened to it this year?

I have never been much fussed about the garden and I'm there have been years where the grass hasn't even been cut but for the past 3/4 years we have been working hard on keeping it good. This year though I have so many dead patches of grass, it's bald where I hang the washing and all sorts growing where it's not dead!

What can I do to fix this? I'm not physically very able but I just wondered if this is the end for my garden or if there is anything I can try to make it grow, also should I still be cutting it, there are patches of grass still growing up?

It sounds as if the grass has been choked by the weeds but mainly the moss. As you mention not being physically able, can you, or is there anyone you can ask to rake off as much of the moss as possible, then aerate the soil with a garden fork or mower with an aerator attachment? And then dig out the worst of the weeds?
If the weeds are superficial I use boiling water on mine - soon sorts them out.

This may cause even more bald spots initially, but you can then lightly rake it over again and sprinkle some grass seed, then gently walk over it to impress into the soil, before giving it a watering.

It's the best time of year right now to seed grass, and yes to keep mowing the live areas. Once the seed takes hold, then mow on a high setting first few times to give the roots a chance to mature and hold firm.

What JasperJohn says ^^

In our part of the UK we had a drought for almost the whole Spring. Weeds root more deeply than grass, so tend to survive preferentially in such dry soil conditions, where the grass shrivels.
What sort of soil do you have? If it’s very thin, sandy or chalky, your lawn may need irrigated by hose or sprinkler nightly in dry weather, to keep it going.

I'm a bit worried about raking/loosening the soil because I have a huge tree over part of the grass which is currently dropping 'things' onto the grass so I don't want to plant them!! Can you tell I know nothing!

I have a huge tree too - a sycamore - which drops millions of seeds onto the grass each year. Most of them don't take root, and the 1% that do either get pulled out as tiny seedlings whenever I spot them or the lawn mower does a really good job of chopping them up. I've lived here 8 years and have never had any problem with the seeds bigger than that.

Also, just to say, because my tree is so big it gives a massive canopy cover when it's in leaf, which means very little sun and rain get to the grass immediately below. So the grass under there is a bit scraggy anyway but still gets mowed. It doesn't stop the birds from worm hunting, or our local hedgehog from his nightly meanderings.

So, raking and loosening the soil is literally the bare surface, just enough to give the grass seed a 'way in' to root and take hold.

Thank you so much for the advice, I was rushing about earlier and realised I had forgotten to mention the tree!!

It has hardly rained! It's not rocket science.

Did you mean to be rude?

I have posted about how I have struggled over the years but am trying to get in top of the garden. I have demonstrated that I know nothing about gardening and I have asked for advice.

What did you get out of putting me down there?

I have a very different take on lawn care. My lawn is full of weeds and moss and grass. I participated in No Mow May and now have some Pyramid Orchids in my lawn, which would never have grown if I’d kept mowing and weeding. I saw a butterfly on one that I had never seen before.

My viewpoint on lawns changed completely when I read The Garden Jungle (or Gardening to Save the Planet) by Dave Goulson. A beautiful perfect lawn of only grass is a desert for wildlife and insects. There is nothing there for them. Our natural lawn weeds, clover, buttercup etc have evolved to suit our native species of bees, butterflies, insects etc. The numbers of these is crashing due to habitat loss.

There has been a dry spell and this causes the moss to disintegrate and you can end up with scruffy areas. You can leave these alone and the other stuff will spread into them in winter. Or rake up the dead moss and sprinkle soil and grass seed in the area. September is best for this.

Or is it possible you have used some generic Weed and Feed product on it recently. This will certainly cause bare patches. There will always be more problems anywhere there is continuous foot traffic. Ie washing line. If you can move the line periodically this will solve the problem.

One of my greatest joys now is watching the bees on the clover. Gardening is moving away from the controlling nature to make it what we want, to gardening alongside nature to create a habitat for all life forms. Everyone needs to find their own level. I personally have made peace with greenfly and slugs, and now have a load more birds in the garden. Watching a dozen goldfinches eating the seeds off dandelions is enchanting.

And you know what is the absolute clincher for gardening this way. Far, far less work. What you lose in pristine perfection, you gain in wildlife. I haven’t seen a slowworm in years, if I saw one in my garden now, I would know I was doing something right.

I enjoyed reading this. Thank you for sharing these thoughts. My lawn is also a wildlife lawn and I do struggle with this, as it feels like there's more weeds than grass growing. I am content with clover but I have a significant amount of creeping buttercup which seems to kill off the grass completely. I'm trying to adopt a relaxed approach to lawn care and value the food these plants provide for the insects but it's not coming easily to me. I know that unless I chuck glysophate everywhere I won't be able to eradicate the weeds, even with pulling them up regularly, so I'm doing my best to make peace with my lawn. I find it looks quite attractive if I keep it reasonably short (not too short - if I do it too short it seems to scalp the lawn and leave bare patches for weeds to root). I have started to put Wilko liquid lawn feed (not weed and feed) on it once a month. This seems to make it very green and I hope encourages the grass to thicken up. I've sprinkled grass seed on the patches where I'd pulled up some of the most invasive weeds (I think I've got some couch grass). I want to reach a point where it's mostly grass and then I will tolerate the weeds much better. I'm trying to do this as naturally as possible. (For what it's worth I've planted loads of RHS labelled plants for pollinators recently so I'm content to dig up the unwanted weeds to ensure my lawn is at least 50% grass - this isn't the case in some areas where the buttercup is!)