What's that white fuzz in your lawn?

This winter was rough on your lawn. As the snow melted, you may have noticed circles or patches of grey, tan, white, even pink, dead-looking grass. It was most likely snow mold. 

Snow mold seen in one of our customers' lawns earlier this season. 

Snow mold is a fungus that thrives when the grass is snow-covered for long periods of time. Even though this winter we saw a shorter period of snow cover than it usually takes for snow mold to thrive, the conditions must have been just right for it because we saw a lot of it.
There are two types of snow mold, grey snow mold and pink snow mold (more severe). Both will appear as circular dead patches, usually 3-12 inches in diameter. Close up you may see fuzzy webbing or strings (mycelium) on top of grass blades or at the outer edges of the patches. 

Grey snow mold is the less severe of the two, and the variety that we saw a lot of this spring. The damage is primarily to leaf blades only. Further damage usually stops when the lawn begins to green up. The mycelium will dry out and the grass will usually recover as normal growth resumes. Lightly fluffing up the dead grass with a leaf rake (not a grass rake) can help the lawn recover more quickly. 

At this point in the season, your grass should begin to recover from snow mold damage as it begins to grow. If for some reason it doesn't seem like your grass is recovering, you can give us a call!

For more information on other common lawn issues, see our website page on Common Lawn Problems here.