How to fix a patchy lawn (and keep it fixed)

Why is my lawn patchy in the first place?

Grass does not thin out for no reason. Before you buy anything, spend five minutes on your knees in the worst patch and work out which of these you are looking at.

Wear is the most common cause in a backyard. The track to the clothesline, the dog's lap of the fence line, the circle where the trampoline sat all summer. The grass is not sick, it has been flattened and the growing points are gone.

Shade is next. If a patch sits under a tree or on the south side of a fence, it may simply not be getting the four to six hours of sun that most Australian lawn grasses want. Buffalo copes best with shade, couch copes worst.

Compaction and thin soil are the quiet ones. Push a screwdriver into a healthy part of the lawn, then into the patch. If it slides in easily in one spot and fights you in the other, the roots are fighting too.

And then there is plain hunger. An unfed lawn thins everywhere, but it shows up first in the spots already under pressure. If the whole lawn has gone pale and slow rather than patchy in one place, start with a proper feeding routine before you dig anything up.

How do I fix bare patches without re-turfing?

Running grasses repair themselves. Couch, kikuyu and buffalo all spread by runners, so a bare spot up to about the size of a dinner plate will usually close over on its own once you give it light, air and food. Your job is to remove whatever caused the patch, then make the surrounding grass grow fast enough to crawl across it.

Cause	What to do	Rough timeline
Wear and traffic	Reroute the path or lift whatever has been sitting there, then feed fortnightly	3 to 6 weeks
Compaction	Fork the patch over, topdress lightly with a sandy loam, keep water and feed up	4 to 8 weeks
Shade	Lift the lower tree limbs for more light, or accept a thinner lawn and plant a shade-tolerant groundcover	One season
Hunger and pale colour	Feed every 1 to 2 weeks and water deeply twice a week	2 to 4 weeks
Bare patch bigger than a dinner plate	Plug or turf the centre, then feed the whole area so it knits in	6 to 10 weeks

Resist the urge to do all five at once. Fork the patch, feed it, and give it a fortnight before you decide it needs turf.

How often should I feed a recovering lawn?

More often than a healthy one, in smaller doses. Medigrow is the nitrogen-led Phase 1 feed, and nitrogen is exactly what drives leaf and runner growth. Mix 2.5 mL per litre of water, which is about 22 mL for a full 9 L watering can, and apply every 1 to 2 weeks while the lawn is actively growing.

One mix, two methods. You can spray it over the leaves or water it in at the roots, same rate either way. For patch repair, watering in has the edge, because you want root growth under those runners and not just colour on top. Our guide to foliar versus root feeding covers when each one wins.

If you have just laid plugs or sown seed, go half strength, 1.25 mL per litre, weekly until they take hold. That is the same gentle approach we use for young seedlings in the veggie bed.

A 5 L Medigrow makes 2,000 L of mixed feed, which is 222 feeds at roughly 45c each, so feeding a recovering lawn fortnightly costs less than most people expect. There is more detail in our cost per feed breakdown.

Keeping it fixed

Patches come back for the same reasons they appeared. Four habits stop that.

Mow higher. Dropping the mower a notch is the fastest way to thin a lawn, because short grass has shallow roots and no shade over its own soil. Buffalo in particular wants to be left long.

Water less often but deeper, so the roots chase moisture down instead of sitting in the top centimetre.

Feed on a rhythm rather than in a panic. Every 1 to 2 weeks in the growing season, easing off as the lawn slows down in the cold.

And match the feed to the grass. Buffalo, kikuyu and couch all behave a bit differently, which we go through in feeding each lawn type, and the whole-garden timing sits in our month by month feeding guide.

Common questions

Can I repair a patchy lawn in winter?

Not quickly. Warm season grasses barely move below about 15 degrees, so a patch you fork over in July will sit there looking rough until the soil warms. Do the preparation in winter if you like, then feed and expect real movement from early spring.

Seed or plugs?

For couch, kikuyu and buffalo, plugs or small turf squares beat seed almost every time, because those grasses spread sideways on their own once established. Seed suits cool season lawns like ryegrass and fescue.

Will feeding more often fix it faster?

Up to a point. Fortnightly at the label rate is the sweet spot. Doubling the concentration does not double growth, it just risks burning the tips of grass that is already stressed. Steady beats heavy.

Medigrow is mineral-based, with no blood and bone, fish meal or manure, so there is no food smell to send the dog digging in your fresh repair. It is safe around kids and pets when used as directed, just let the foliage dry after spraying. Made and shipped in Australia, free shipping over $149, and backed by our 30-Day Growers Guarantee.