Grass Deterioration

[Chere.]

Can we talk about grass deterioration because honestly even after owning this game for 6 years I,, still don't know exactly how it works? ;;

I've tried searching up the topic multiple times throughout the years, but nothing I find anywhere is ever consistent, and no one really seems to talk about it? There are patches of dirt in my town that I'd really like to cover with grass but nothing seems to work. The somewhat consecutive thing I've heard that works is planting flowers on the dirt and watering them, and that presumably helps grass grow underneath them and/or doubles the time it would usually take (though I've also heard people say that doesn't work). I've also heard planting bushes on dirt can work too which I'm trying right now (but I honestly don't think that's doing anything either haha).

Nothing really seems to be working, and I'm wondering if certain dirt patches are just permanent? I think I've heard that somewhere, but I've never seen many people discuss the issue about permanent dirty patches so I'm not sure if that's true or not.

 

[EmGee]

As far as I know some patches really are just permanent. One thing you can do to boost some regrowth is on Sunday, TT back to today, then back to Sunday again. You'll see some new grass once you're back on the correct day. I don't recommend traveling more than that because if you go for a week without villager interaction they won't ping you until you talk to them again

 

[Chere.]

As far as I know some patches really are just permanent. One thing you can do to boost some regrowth is on Sunday, TT back to today, then back to Sunday again. You'll see some new grass once you're back on the correct day. I don't recommend traveling more than that because if you go for a week without villager interaction they won't ping you until you talk to them again

Oof, I figured. I've had a few villagers move out recently and I TT a lot, and have noticed the grass in those areas fills in the dirt patches, while the ones I'm actually trying to fix stay the same. There was one area I thought was growing back but I'm honestly not so sure anymore. ;v;

 

[will.]

yeah i've always been confused about how grass deterioration works. i think there's always gonna be a set amount of worn down grass in your town because i've heard of towns that have dirt paths and they don't have that much grass deterioration in their town besides paths.
i know that you can use a save manager to grow all your grass back but after the game is saved and closed and a day passes, the grass wear comes back again. it's kinda odd but at least it's better than pass games.

 

[Colette]

Yes, there's definitely permanent patches of dirt scattered around town. The techniques you mentioned do work for normal wear & tear (walking, villager moving), but some will always be there. You can always find a QR pattern that matches your grass shape/color and cover it that way!

 

[Chere.]

Yes, there's definitely permanent patches of dirt scattered around town. The techniques you mentioned do work for normal wear & tear (walking, villager moving), but some will always be there. You can always find a QR pattern that matches your grass shape/color and cover it that way!

That's honestly really frustrating. :') I have a fair number of what I'm assuming are permanent grass patches around town that I just wish I could fix. Unfortunately QR codes wouldn't really help since many of the areas I want to be filled in have either flowers or bushes on them. I also can't help but feel that they'd stick out like a sore thumb.

 

[Colette]

Yeah, I've got a really annoying one right around one of my rocks, RIGHT in front of the train station, which kills me. @_@ I try to place PWPS or trees on as many patches as possible, but I guess the ground would look a little bland without a little dirt variations.

 

[ScaryGhosts]

Alright, so what people have been saying about permanent patches of dirt is absolutely true, but for some reason some parts on non-permanent dirt heal faster than others. I pay a LOT of attention to the grass/dirt in my town. I have natural paths amd I often try to alter them, and although this may not be entirely helpful, I’ve found the flower and bush thing to be completely arbitrary. I plated flowers (that i watered every day) and bushes over a well-worn part of my path months ago and to this day absolutely no grass has grown back. I am 100% sure that it is not a permenent dirt path as i still have pictures of the progressive grass wear when I was forming the path (this has happened in several places). On the other hand. I recently ran a path a little wider than I wanted it, and just running along the parts that I wanted to keep bare and not the parts I wanted to be grass grew the grass back within a week or so, this was a newer path and i did not plant anything over the parts where the frass grew back. I also have another path I am trying to tame, and I have planted flowers along the side of it that i want the grass to fill in and i have noticed a *very slight* improvement over the past few months. This too is a newer path. My conclusion is that either the age of the dirt spot has to do with how quickly the grass grows back (i.e. the more recently the dirt formed, the more quickly it will heal), or it is completely random lol.

 

[Chere.]

yeah i've always been confused about how grass deterioration works. i think there's always gonna be a set amount of worn down grass in your town because i've heard of towns that have dirt paths and they don't have that much grass deterioration in their town besides paths.
i know that you can use a save manager to grow all your grass back but after the game is saved and closed and a day passes, the grass wear comes back again. it's kinda odd but at least it's better than pass games.

These dirt patches will be the end of me honestly, haha. But ah I see, yeah,, makes me wonder how it'll be in New Horizons tbh.

Yeah, I've got a really annoying one right around one of my rocks, RIGHT in front of the train station, which kills me. @_@ I try to place PWPS or trees on as many patches as possible, but I guess the ground would look a little bland without a little dirt variations.

Oh shoot that sounds really annoying?? I'm sorry to hear that ;; I have a bunch of dirt patches on the edges of cliffs so like,, I can't plant trees or bushes on them, and planting flowers on those patches doesn't exactly help. It's really annoying because I have two areas that are on the edge of the cliffs that are supposed to be like pretty green, decorated with flowers, bushes, etc. but the dirt patches just make the areas look kind of sad :')

Alright, so what people have been saying about permanent patches of dirt is absolutely true, but for some reason some parts on non-permanent dirt heal faster than others. I pay a LOT of attention to the grass/dirt in my town. I have natural paths amd I often try to alter them, and although this may not be entirely helpful, I’ve found the flower and bush thing to be completely arbitrary. I plated flowers (that i watered every day) and bushes over a well-worn part of my path months ago and to this day absolutely no grass has grown back. I am 100% sure that it is not a permenent dirt path as i still have pictures of the progressive grass wear when I was forming the path (this has happened in several places). On the other hand. I recently ran a path a little wider than I wanted it, and just running along the parts that I wanted to keep bare and not the parts I wanted to be grass grew the grass back within a week or so, this was a newer path and i did not plant anything over the parts where the frass grew back. I also have another path I am trying to tame, and I have planted flowers along the side of it that i want the grass to fill in and i have noticed a *very slight* improvement over the past few months. This too is a newer path. My conclusion is that either the age of the dirt spot has to do with how quickly the grass grows back (i.e. the more recently the dirt formed, the more quickly it will heal), or it is completely random lol.

Oh huh, I see. Thanks for sharing! I think,, I'm gonna keep trying with the dirt patches, because there's one which I think may be healing?? Albeit at a super slow pace. I don't mind grass deterioration because it makes your town more natural, but I really hate the fact that there are like permanent patches. And they always seem to be in the most inconvenient places. OTL

 

[LadyDestani]

Yes, the permanent dirt patches can be annoying and an eyesore. I don't mind some of them, but I have a very large one right in front of my cafe. I didn't realize it was permanent when I placed the cafe. I wanted to put a bench and streetlamp on the cliff overlooking the beach in front of the cafe, but it looked horrible because the dirt patch was huge. I scrapped the idea and planted a bunch of trees, bushes and flowers there instead. At least they mask it a little bit.

I've tried watering flowers to repair grass deterioration and it never really worked for me. What works best for me is not walking across the area I want grass to regrow. When I was watering flowers, I was still stepping on the area so I think it cancelled out the benefit. Bushes can help a little because they keep you from stepping on that tile.

The best thing, though, is the first day of spring when the snow melts. When that happens, you won't have any grass deterioration at all, so any dirt patches you see are definitely permanent. I love those first couple of weeks of spring where my town is so green.

 

[lars708]

The perma dirt patches never really bothered me but yeah I can understand that it's frustrating that you can't grow grass there in any (legit) way at all