Many people call it a lawn blister. And when a huge grass bubble pops, it’s so eye-soothing and feel-good no matter what you call it!
But what causes them and how they are formed? Are they bad for your lawn or are they possess any danger?
There are plenty of questions and lawn bubbles so I decided to write a piece about it. Stay with me!
What Is A Lawn Blister Or Lawn Bubbles?
You may not have seen this many times in your life, but a lawn blister is a bubble formed under the grassy surface of your lawn. This usually happens when there is water trapped under the grassy surface of a lawn.
While water is the most common thing to get trapped in a lawn blister, some other elements can be there too. Sometimes there can be various gases trapped inside the grassy surface of a lawn.
A common gas you can find in these lawn blisters is methane, as it is present in most of the plants internally.
However, this is pretty rare that methane will be trapped inside the surface of your lawn. In most cases, you will be dealing with water trapped inside them, which happens for various reasons.
Also, getting rid of this isn’t that difficult either, so you shouldn’t worry too much about getting a lawn blister or bubbles on your lawn.
Just make sure to get preventive measures for your lawn if you haven’t done it already. Because it may not harm your lawn that much, it can surely hurt it.
And you would want to avoid that anyway.
What Causes A Grass Bubble To Form?
Knowing how what causes it to form will help you to understand its implication on your lawn. Also, you will understand whether popping it will possess any health hazard or not.
Here is a list of probable causes of lawn bubbles:
- If you spread plastic before adding grass and topsoil, it will cause bubbles when raining by trapping water between the plastic and soil. Sometimes, it looks like a brass waterbed.
- It will happen due to an excessive influx of water into the lawn ground. It mainly happens due to excessive rainfall, breakage of your irrigation system, or even water pipe burst below the ground.
- Though very rare, it may happen due to the release of build-up natural methane gas from the decaying organic matter.
How To Get Rid Of Lawn Bubbles?
You need to come up with the best solution to remove the water from the bubble. Also, you should take preventive measures so that it does not happen more frequently.
Don’t try to pop it out of the fun. That may several punctures and it will damage your lawn. Determine the drainage areas so that you can move the water from the bubbles.
Create a trench that’s suitable for your lawn. Get a sharp object (any sharp garden tool) to puncture the blister. Don’t start jumping on it like a child!
You should not make multiple punctures or large punctures to avoid damaging your garden. Here is a video explaining how you should do it.
As soon as the water comes out of the pockets, you should clean up the mess. Otherwise, you will end up with a sodden lawn!
Ways To Prevent Lawn Blisters
Once you are done removing the water, it’s time to take preventive measures! You need to figure out exactly where the water is coming from and where it’s going. You can determine it any rainy day.
Here is how I have prevented this problem from happening again:
- Add More Soil Or Install a French Drainage
The right way to deal with such bubbles is to push the water to the side of the lawn. If you add more soil to the center of the lawn, you can achieve this easily.
But if the water is only pulling on a particular side of the lawn, installing a French drain will solve the problem. It’s a temporary solution though because sediment can block the water.
So, you need to redo the French drain again. You can add a retaining wall to move the water away from your lawn grass if the lawn itself is located at the bottom of a slope.
- A Better Soil Preparation
A properly prepared soil will allow the water to move easily. That’s how it helps to prevent lawn blisters. It’s not that hard doing so.
You just add sand or gravel to the soil to get better drainage.
- Better Aeration
You should aerate your lawn every 2 or 3 years to prevent over-saturation. You just remove the cores from the soil or puncture the lawn soil with spikes. Learn more about aeration from here.
Aeration will prevent puddling and reduce compacting significantly allowing water to flow to the roots of your lawn grass.
- Add A Rain Garden
To soak up the rainwater, adding a rain garden is actually a good idea. I recommend Bluestar, Cardinal flower, Swamp milkweed, Turtlehead, etc. as some great plants for a rain garden.
It helps to prevent blisters by draining the water slowly. Also, if your lawn has a run-off water problem, it will purify it!
- Seeking Professional Help
Now, if you think you don’t have the experience or knowledge of working on a lawn, then seeking professional help is a better choice. They can prepare your lawn so that it doesn’t get any lawn blisters in the future.
This is the best way to set up your lawn to keep it in better shape for a long time.
Advice From Lawncare Professionals
Waterbeds or bubbles kill the overall look of your lawn and not everyone is fond of them (of course, other than the kids!).
But if you just remove the water creating a hole around the blister, it will just solve the problem temporarily. It might happen during the next rainstorm!
So, before you even pop the bubbles, you need to figure out what causes the bubbles in the first place.
There are certain things you can’t control like the rain but you can definitely take care of your broken pipe! So, along with getting rid of the bubbles, you must address the factors that are causing them.
Do Lawn Blisters Pose Any Threat To Your Yard?
While the lawn blisters may look enticing to jump on, they can have some negative effects on your yard. Well, the impact may not be severe, but it does make things a bit bad for you.
First of all, the lawn bubbles will kill your grass. Since lawn bubbles are created from a water layer underneath the surface of your lawn, the surface is missing out on that water.
This means the surface area around the lawn bubbles isn’t getting the proper nutrients they should be receiving from the water.
So, it can potentially kill your grass from deprivation of water.
This may not happen because the grass will eventually bounce back when the weather is wet or rainy. This will only work if the soil underneath the surface isn’t affected by the lawn blisters.
Should You Be Scared Of Lawn Blisters?
In reality, lawn blisters aren’t dangerous for you. They can’t harm you in any way except for the fact that you will have to deal with that to keep your lawn better.
Other than that, there is nothing harmful about lawn blisters towards you.
However, that doesn’t make it a safe place to jump around for you. You should avoid moving too much on the lawn blister lest you should pop it up.
Popping a lawn blister will never yield any positive result for your yard.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Yes, if you burst it the wrong way. The excess water from the bubbles will flood the grass and uproot them. The deep roots of grass above the waterbed are not in contact with the soil.
So, if you left the bubble unattended, the grass won’t get its much-needed nutrients and it will eventually kill them.
Most of the time, no. If you notice such bubbles after heavy rainfall, it’s safe. But there are bubbles on the lawn without such lawn, there is a huge possibility that the methane gas from the decaying organic matter has caused this. In which case, it may be dangerous.
The most obvious reason is water is trapped between the soil and grass after a heavy rainstorm. If not, then probably methane gas.
When water is trapped between the grass and soil layer from the rain or pipe outburst, it’s resulted in bubbles.
Carefully create a small hole around the blister to drain the water out of the bubbles. Don’t create too many holes to avoid ruining your lawn.
Conclusion
Maintaining the proper lawn condition will prevent the grass bubble from happening in the future. You will have to just constantly maintain your lawn.
But if that happens out of nowhere like a pipe burst or anything like that, follow the procedures I describe to remove the water from the lawn blisters without damaging your lawn.
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