Help Your Lawn Recover from Winter Dog Pee Burns
Dealing with those unsightly dead spots left over from winter dog bathroom breaks? Here’s how to address the damage and keep your lawn looking its best:
Understanding Winter Dog Urine Damage
During the winter, the turf is somewhat protected from the daily blast of urine from your pet, but that saturation of urine will create dead spots once the turf greens up later this spring unless you do some proactive steps now. For those of us in the northern climates, you’ll have about a 2-3 week window to treat the yard before the damage is done.
Act Fast: The Key to Recovery
The application window is right when the ground is thawed and before the turf is just starting to come out of winter dormancy. Most of us don’t realize that all those turf plants in the yard lose about 60% of their root systems every year and will have to regrow them each spring. If that new root starts to grow and is surrounded by urine, it will fry.
This is also why you can sometime see a dark greening around the edges of a burn. It’s just the right amount of nitrogen to give the turf some color and growth.
Revive to the Rescue
You’ll want to spray the old spots with a healthy application of Revive Dog Spot Treatment. Here’s how:
- Don’t turn the water faucet on full blast – just enough to get some water flowing.
- Give each area about a 5-7 second soaking.
- If the areas have been hammered hard over the winter, you might want to retreat again two weeks after the first treatment.
Important: DO NOT APPLY fertilizer at this time as you’ll be adding more salt and nitrogen to the problem.
Keep the Revive spray bottle once it’s empty has it can be refill with our Gallon size saving you money.
Patience is Key
From my experience, these winter burn areas will come out of it but might be a week or two behind the rest of the lawn once it’s greened up.
Treating Spots Too Late?
If the lawn has green up from winter dormancy, it’s too late to treat those winter spots. If you missed the application window and/or the burn areas are still brown by mid April, the turf is likely dead and would need to be replaced with seed or sod