How to spot weeds and deal with them
Paul Duxbury
When I was a child, I loved to pick Dandelions. The pretty yellow
flowers were small, colorful, and looked nice tucked behind my
ear! However, if one had popped up in the front yard, my hair
accessory would have been considered an atrocity! I often
feel sorry for weeds. They are plants too. In fact, if you
flipped through a botany field guide, you may be surprised at the
plants you find classified as weeds! But simply put, a weed is
really defined as a plant out of place.
Clover in one persons flowing lawn may be considered fashionable,
whereas on another, not. Golf greens are often covered with
bentgrass, but if it crept up in some yards, it would be
considered a weed. While perhaps pretty on their own, weeds stick
out like a sore thumb in yards because they may be of a different
color, size or texture. This is distracting from the beauty of
the otherwise sprawling green turf. Aside from aesthetic values,
weeds can also drain nutrients from grass and other plants, and
this competition of resources can thin what should be lush. And
what’s worse is that weeds are fighters. They can withstand
conditions that your wanted greens cannot, so they are almost
inevitable!
Treating weeds begins with correct identification. There are two
classifications of weeds: Grassy and Broadleaf. These are further
broken down into groups like perennial, biennial, and winter and
summer annuals. These, as you may gave guessed, depict their
growing patterns. Grassy weeds are, as they sound, like grass.
However, they are unwanted grass, or grass that is growing in a
different type of lawn. Some examples are annual bluegrass,
barnyard grass, crabgrass, creeping bentgrass and foxtail.
Broadleaf weeds may appear more to be what most people picture
weed-like growth to be. Since they are broad, they are more
easily distinguished. Some examples are yarrow, knotweed,
chickweed, clover, ground ivy, thistle and my favorite, the
dandelion.
Once you understand what is growing in your lawn and decide that
it is unwanted, you can treat it and/or control it. Weeds can
actually be controlled by your lawn care maintenance. If you
maintain a dense and vigorously growing lawn, you are already
combating the problem. Weeds can be a sign of underlying problems
in the environment beneath. So by just killing them, you are
simply putting on a band-aid, not solving the problem. For
example, some weeds grow in situations of compacted soil, such as
knotweed. You can also control the growth by taking better care
of the grass, rather than focus on the weeds. You can raise or
lower the mowing height, change the frequency of mowing and
changing the amount of time between irrigating. Also, you can
increase or decrease application of fertilizer and aerify the
soil. This will maintain better grass, thus keeping the growth
dense and vigorous, which as discussed above, does not attract
weeds.
In addition to culture practices, sometimes the assistance of
chemicals is needed to control weed growth. In that case, there
are several types of herbicides that can be used. Pre-emergence
herbicides will affect seeds that are germinating. Since they are
best used two to three weeks before the seeds start to grow,
these work best to combat annual weeds. Post-emergence herbicides
are used, as their prefix implies, after the weeds have sprouted.
Since they must be absorbed through the leaves, this types of
herbicide works best with a spray. These can be used at any
time, but are most effective when the weed is still young and
growing. Selective post-emergence herbicides are usually used to
control annual, biennial and perennial broadleaf weeds, as they
will not damage grass. But, they can kill trees, shrubs and
flowers. These have to be used in proper conditions as well, with
no rain in the forecast for two days to follow, air 60-80 degrees
and no winds. Finally, non-selective post-emergence herbicides
kill all types of weeds, and are best used to spot treat grassy
weeds that are not affected by the selective herbicides.
So next time you see a Dandelion plant growing, don’t make a wish
and blow the seeds toward in the direction of a lawn fanatic-
they may not get the perfectly manicured lawn they wished for!
Paul is Head of Training for a major UK Charitable Organization
with a wealth of experience in personal development, management
development, e-learning and operational management. In addition
he owns PK eBooks ( http://www.pk-ebooks.co.uk) and has just
published a Create the Lawn You want! eBook which can be found at
http://www.pk-ebooks.co.uk/create_your_dream_lawn.htm
See Also:
Index of Lawn Care
Index of Gardens & Gardening
Search our site for any Home, Lawn or Garden Info
