It’s the time of year when you have a sea of green lawns, until you run into these patches. This is grass mesh, laid down like a cover to let new grass grow.
At 58th and Webster, homeowners watched as workers installed underground fiber optic cable earlier this year. And when they were done, they planted new grass, but this isn’t a story about the grass; it's a story about this mesh.
"The grass is growing a little bit, but it's discolored,” homeowner Tim Dunne says after the workers left, he was left with questions about the thin netting meant to help slow erosion.
"We really didn't get much information on what to do with it. It was there, and we are dealing with it now," Dunne told me.
So, what do you do with it? Meteorologist Joseph Meyer talked with Jason Borst of Grass Pad for the answer. He said that it's up to the homeowner to decide what to do. Turns out, you have options.
You can let it biodegrade: “The process would generally take up to 24 to 36 months, depending on how much microbial activity someone sees, or how much sunlight someone sees; those are all things that will help," said Borst.
Or pick it up early: “As soon as the grass starts coming up through that matting is the best and the easiest time to softly start peeling back that erosion mat, and it will do minimal damage to the turf grass that was planted underneath it," Borst says.
He also recommends avoiding mowing over it, as the mesh netting may get caught in the blades and cause damage.
“We gotta maintain our lawn, so at some point I'll probably just pull it up," Dunne said.
