Did lawn get yucky under all that snow?

Like many of you, I went for several months without ever seeing my lawn. Like many of you, now that I have seen it, I wish it could be covered up again.

After the long winter, it's not a pretty sight.

There a numerous spots of dead grass; other areas have strange patterns running through them; and some other areas are covered with large mounds of earth. The question is, what to do?

Staring with the spots, we'll take some advice from William Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth "Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!"

While Lady Macbeth wasn't referring to her lawn, many homeowners share her feelings.

The spots are snow mold, caused by one or more fungi attacking the lawn. How and what to do depends on what kind of grass you are growing and which fungus is attacking your lawn. However, spraying is not an option.

Pink snow mold is caused by the Fusarium nivalis fungus. This is not usually the problem because snow cover is not needed for the spots to develop. It forms irregular patches with light pink margins.

The likely culprit now is gray snow mold caused by Typhuyla fungus. It is rampant when you have persistent snow. The symptoms include dead patches of grass in the spring. The diagnostic key is the presence of brown fungal sclerotia — or fruiting bodies — that are the size of a grain of sand and embedded in the dead leaves of the grass.

While there are numerous fungicides that control these diseases, don't bother to spray. Fungicides are preventive products, so spraying after you see the spots is a waste of time and money. If you have serious, persistent problems in an area, make a note to treat those areas before it snows next fall.

Other preventive controls involve getting the snow off the lawn as soon as possible and avoiding heavy applications of fertilizer in the fall. To deal with the problem on your lawn now requires a much more mundane solution.

If your lawn is Kentucky bluegrass, and most of the lawns in Utah are, grab the leaf rake and rake off the matted accumulation of the grass that covers the spots and then let the grass grow back and fill in the holes.

If you have a ryegrass lawn, the problem is more serious. With this type of lawn, the grass is often killed and the area must be overseeded. Ryegrass does not have rhizomes — or stolons — so it does not fill back in after it is damaged.