Why won't grass grow over an old tree stump spot?
Decomposing sawdust and wood chips trapped underground soak up all the nitrogen from the soil. This nutrient depletion starves the turf, causing dead patches where grass repeatedly fails to establish.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Scraping off the top layer of larger bark and wood chunks and adding topsoil and seed
- 2Digging out the old sawdust and soil mix and replacing it entirely with new topsoil before reseeding
- 3Covering in peat moss and starter fertilizer
- 4Applying disease ex and propiconazole granules
- 5Trusting the process and waiting to see what spring brings
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I’m dealing with a tree that was removed in my yard 2 years ago, grass struggles to grow where it was. I dug into the soil to find that it’s a lot of sawdust and dirt under the grass. From my reading be decomposing sawdust/chips are sucking up all the nitrogen in the soil and causing the grass to die.”source ↗
“I’m in PA by Philadelphia and I have this weird patch here where nothing is growing.”source ↗
“my lawn has some spots like this is well.”source ↗