Yellow/white is being smothered. Removed some/all of the straw/blanket in those areas. Where it is growing through leave it.

 

Thanks bernstem. For anyone wondering about blowing leaves: I ended up running the blower over the yard yesterday afternoon, being cautious to just minimize my steps as much as possible. My thought process was that even if my footsteps damage some new growth, the surface area of my footsteps was going to be much less than the surface area of the leaves that would have been smothering new growth. Will report back.

 

Agreed. I'd remove the blankets completely if you aren't worried about the erosion portion anymore (and you aren't going to be tearing a bunch of grass up). From my experience, the grass will come in much better. I've tried these blankets multiple times now and some spots I've kept them and most of the other spots I've removed them. I am actually removing mine tomorrow (Rhino Erosion King Jr Straw Blankets; probably built the same as yours) in about 900 sq.ft that I re-did. They say it is all degradable, but man...that stuff is so problematic if you don't stake it down exactly the way its supposed to be. The netting (and string stuff) is awful on these. But, they do a good job of helping with erosion early on for sure. The rains stopped that just came through and the grass is tall enough now that I don't have to worry about erosion much anymore, which was the main use of the blankets in my case. On top of no rain for several days, the grass should continue to grow and thicken up. Good luck on your project!