Sometimes, you just cannot help getting some tire tracks in your yard. If you had a tree removed, you will have several kinds of tire tracks, along with hundreds of indentations and the unsightly hole where the tree stump was. Sometimes, city workers need to get their trucks into places where poles are, and they will have zero remorse for driving through your yard. That is yet another price you pay for amenities. You may even be the culprit leaving tire tracks all over your lawn as well. Unloading firewood, moving furniture, dumping more dirt into your lawn, and all kinds of other things require a vehicle to pull up into the lawn. But, you do not want to leave those tire tracks after they are made, because it will damage your lawn in many ways.

Tire Track Damage

The obvious reasons should be apparent. The tires on the vehicle will sink down into the soft soil of your lawn, causing large indentations wherever the vehicle drives. The grass will be crushed. Although, some grass species are ridiculously resilient to heavy weight, and some of the grass will pop right back up in a day or two. But, that does not matter if you want to fix the tire track.

If you leave the tire track in your yard, it also causes a tripping hazard. If you have kids, or older adults at risk of falling live in the home, then the tire tracks must be fixed for everyone to stay safe in the yard.

Tracks are a brand new, small riverbed in your lawn. When it rains, or if you must water your lawn, the tire tracks will capture more water. The ground underneath the track is already compacted, so it will not drain very well. Water will pool in the tire tracks, killing the grass, not only in the track, but around the track as well. Standing water is also great for mosquitoes and other bugs to lay their eggs in.

Fixing the Tire Tracks

The easiest thing to do is to just add some soil to your lawn to cover the tracks. If you do go that route, make sure to try and at least punch a shovel or another tool into the compacted soil inside the tire track so that it gets broken up a little bit and drains better. You will have to add enough dirt to be level with the rest of the yard, but then about another inch on top of that, because the soil will settle as it becomes a bit more compacted with rain, footsteps, etc. When adding soil to a lawn, it is recommended that you add a preemergent before seeding, because it will prevent crabgrass, and other weeds from growing and spreading across your lawn. Fresh soil is especially susceptible to seeds that migrate from other lawns or areas of your own lawn. Once you lay down your preemergent, simply seed with your favorite grass seed, set up a sprinkler, and watch the grass grow.

Another way to fix the tire tracks is to just loosen up the compacted dirt and putting it back where it was before. If you do not have access to a good amount of good, fresh soil to lay over the tracks, then you can do it the old-fashioned way, and dig up the track. Having extra soil is going to be necessary if you want to make the tire track completely disappear. The compacted dirt will not be quite enough to fill in the track all the way, usually. If the tracks are one inch or less, than extra soil may not be needed. But, anything deeper than one inch will require extra soil. Once you dig up the track, level everything out, over seed grass seeds, make sure to water, and everything should go back to normal within a couple of weeks.

Again, try and find access to good soil that is sold by the truckload in your local area. Having the ability to add soil to your lawn is detrimental to good lawn care maintenance.