We have been away and very busy with Christmas, my 'Sir Walter' lawn is couple of years old and looks terrible, I think it's dead, what do I now?

As bad as it looks, it can be saved especially since it is a 'Sir Walter' lawn, any other type of lawn I would suggest to re turf.

You need to understand that the Sunshine Coast has gone through a very long, hot and dry spell, we only have had 164mm in the last seven months, in the last month we have broken the record books for the number on days over 30 degrees, this all has an affect on the condition on homeowers lawns, the subsoil moisture levels are gone, empty. The local paper said we have broken an 71 year record for lack of rainfall for the month of January. 

You will be surprised as to how well 'Sir Walter' can recover.

Solution

Remember your 'Sir Walter' will repair it self, depending on how bad it is as to how long it will take, to aid this repair process you can do the following: Just be on the look out for lawn grubs as they like a healthy lawn this time of year, for more info see

1. Lightly fertilize the damaged areas with Crop King 88 ( N:15, P: 4, K: 11)  2Kg per 100m2

2.Top dress the damage areas with good clean weed free soil, purchased form a landscape centre, don't smother the leaves entirely, leave them showing a bit, you will use about 1 cubic metre of soil per 100 square metres of area.( we often use garden mix as this has plenty of nutrients available, down side is it leaves alot of debris on top which can be raked off later or just run your mower over it)

3.Water the soil in to the grass, same day

4.Rewater again in couple of days

5.Two or three weeks later lightly fertilize again with CK 88 if needed

6.Once your lawn has covered over completely fertilize with 'Daleys Maintenance' or something similar, this is a good quality slow release fertilizer, which slowly feeds your lawn over next 3 months.

7. http://www.daleysturf.com.au/pests-(lawn-grubs).html