Sarah Metlova
How To Rid Your Yard Of Weeds – Garden Maintenance, Lawn Care, Lawn Care Tips and Tricks, Lawn Problems, Lawn Treatment, Weeds A Beginner’s Guide to Weeding
For most people, the goal of lawn care is to create a beautiful, evenly colored and attractive lawn. Just grass, nothing else. In other words, we are creating a monoculture. And if there’s one thing Mother Nature doesn’t like, it’s monoculture. Get ready to wrestle with nature in this our beginner’s guide to getting rid of weeds in your lawn and keeping them at bay.
How To Rid Your Yard Of Weeds
Lawn weeds come in many shapes and forms. For some people, they are a boon to biodiversity, while others may feel that weeds spoil the look of their lawn.
Eliminate Chickweed From Your Lawn
If you’re reading this blog, you’ve probably decided to rid your lawn of all broadleaf weeds in order to achieve your goal of having a beautiful, straight, uninterrupted lawn. So how do you achieve this?
For centuries man has relied on mechanical means to remove weeds. And indeed, if you have only a few weeds, it is cheaper and more satisfactory to use mechanical means. In other words, get them off the ground. This way you don’t risk contaminating the soil with human chemicals.
However, when there is a lot of weeds in the area, pulling or digging feels like an impossibly slow task. And so you feel the turn to chemical means to get rid of weeds in your lawn.
There are many types of herbicides, but they fall into two basic classes. Broad spectrum weed killer and selective weed killer.
Spring Weed Control Guide
If you’ve really had enough of your lawn, you can use a broad-spectrum herbicide—one that kills every plant it touches. You turn the lawn into straw and then you can start over with new seeds or new turf. If you choose this option, a good spray is a chemical called glyphosate (often sold as Roundup). It kills every part of the plant, the leaves AND the roots, so it can’t grow again.
Some of the broad-spectrum weed killers simply remove the leaves of the plant, making it appear that it has died, but in fact the roots are still active and can regenerate themselves. They act quickly but are not a good solution to kill an unsightly lawn.
Applying any type of lawn spray requires great care – follow the manufacturer’s instructions to the letter and protect yourself and others at all times.
If you want to keep the grass in your lawn but get rid of the weeds, you need a selective mulch.
The Best Weeding Tools For Your Yard
Plants in this world can be divided into two types. There are plants with broad leaves, such as dandelions, daisies or bird’s eye. And then there are the grasses – the kind we want on our lawns. There are also weeds – but we’ll talk about those later.
Plant scientists call these two types of plants “dicotyledons” and “monocotyledons”. Broadleaf plants are dicots and grasses are monocots. A cotyledon is the germ of a plant leaf contained in seeds.
The visible difference is in their seeds. Open a dicot seed and you will find that it contains two leaf embryos. (In Latin “di” means two). When the seed germinates, the seedling will initially have two leaves. There is only one leaf embryo in a monocot seed (mono means one). When these seeds germinate, only one leaf appears at first.
From day one, each of the two types of plants has a slightly different metabolism. I won’t go into details, but this means you can potentially use herbicides that target either monocots OR dicots. In other words, they work on one type of plant but not another. For example, if your putting green was full of grass, you can use a spray to kill the grass but not the cabbage. Similarly, if your lawn is full of dandelions, you can find a chemical to get rid of lice without damaging the grass. Smart, right?
How Do You Get Rid Of Weeds?
After you’ve decided to use selective weed control to get rid of grass weeds, you now have two options for applying it. Either you can treat the entire lawn in a blanket. OR you can choose to deal with weeds.
Surface treatment is applied to the entire lawn, even to areas without weeds. Spot treatment is applied only to the weed itself.
Removing unwanted plants by hand is by far the most environmentally friendly way to get rid of weeds in your lawn. Too much digging? Try a spot treatment with a selective herbicide.
How do you decide between blankets and spot treatments? Given the choice, I choose the daily spot treatment. These chemicals are expensive to purchase and also have environmental costs. It makes no sense to apply them to areas of the lawn where they are not needed.
How To Get Rid Of Weed Trees In Your Lawn And Garden
That being said, if the lawn appears to have more than 60% weed coverage, or if the treated area is too large to spot treat, it is a spot treatment.
Most “weed and feed” lawn treatments you buy at the garden center are blankets. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions to the letter and your lawn will be looking better in no time.
Alternatively, if you’re feeling confident, you can mix up a liquid spray and apply it to your lawn. ALWAYS make sure you wear protective clothing, gloves and goggles and make sure you know how to mix sprays properly and apply them accurately with a sprayer.
These chemists don’t know the difference between lawn weeds and ornamental plants. Any spray drift can damage your yard or worse – REALLY annoy the neighbors! If you want to use a liquid spray, it is always best to seek professional help.
Pulling Weeds Tips And Tricks
If you are spot treating, spray drift should not be a problem unless you are trying to apply chemicals on a windy day. Simply mix a small amount in a handheld sprayer, follow the manufacturer’s instructions to the letter, and give each weed a drop of the diluted chemical.
Aaahhh the Poa annua weed, also known as annual meadow grass. They are difficult to prevent and even more difficult to remove.
Weed grass is much more difficult to control because selective herbicides are not sophisticated enough to distinguish one type of grass from another. If you are new to lawn care, start with broadleaf weeds first and move on to weeds as you grow more confident.
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Too much weed for your taste? Consider using a broad-spectrum herbicide spot treatment to kill the entire lawn and start over. Watch my video to find out how.
Homemade Herbicides: Kill The Weeds Without Killing The Earth
Once you have satisfactorily eliminated the weeds in your lawn, you need to keep them at bay with some excellent lawn care techniques.
Scarify to remove all debris and open up the sod. Mow the lawn to encourage the growth of grass plants and remove weeds. And then feed the lawn regularly. Again, your goal is to make sure the grass is stronger than any opportunistic weeds.
Your mowing regimen will also help keep weeds at bay. In fact, it is the most powerful weapon in your arsenal. Don’t mow too short until the sod fills all the spots filled with the weeds you killed. If you have a really thick hedge, you can gradually reduce the height of the cut if you like. Remember the 1/3 rule and mow little and often, ONLY your lawn, as this gives weeds the perfect opportunity to enter.
Learn how the type of weeds in your lawn can tell you what additional treatments to use for optimal lawn health. Fortunately for you, their leaves are visibly different from your lawn, allowing you to spot weeds and treat them immediately.
Lawn And Garden Weeds: How To Identify And Control Them
Today’s weed killers take care of the work and eliminate the need for weeds. They are applied where the leaves enter the plant and travel to the root tips. This will kill all the weeds and prevent them from coming back, keeping the grass healthy and green.
In the spring, prevent annual weeds such as grass from taking root in your lawn by applying a pre-emergent weed killer. A spring application means weed seeds won’t germinate and your lawn will be weed-free come summer.
Check the labels, but in general, you don’t need to worry about rain, snow, or freezing temperatures hitting your lawn after application—these elements don’t usually affect weed performance.
Look for “weed and feed” products that kill weeds and promote growth to prevent future weeds. Check the labels and buy the right product for your type of grass. Learn more about the type of grass in your lawn.
The Best Trick To Prevent Weeds In Flower Beds
Whether you need the right plants, seeds or soil, The Home Depot delivers online orders anytime
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