Broadleaf plantain

[Daniel_B]

Hello, I live in N. ILL. and have these weeds in my lawn. I never noticed them before until this year because there weren't that many of them. This spring has been very dry here and I have some white birch trees in the yard that I have been watering. There is now a large patch of them (Broadleaf plantain)under and inside the drip line of the trees I have been watering. I started to remove them by hand, removing all the roots, but decided that it would take quite some time to get them all out. I wanted to use a herbicide but almost all of the ones in the hardware store say not to use on weeds that are inside of the drip line of trees. I did try one that didn't have that warning. Weed B Gone Max. It has been a few days and the weeds are not even wilting. Luckily the patch of weeds is small enough so after I get rid of them I will only have to re-seed that small area. The rest of my lawn seems to be free of them because I haven't watered it. Am letting it go dormant until good rains come back. Thanks for any information in ridding my lawn of these pesky weeds. Dan.

[Marley1372]

Check the back of the label for the active ingredient. If it has glyphosate in it(roundup) then it will take a few days to notice discoloration , then a few more to completley kill. Hot weather speeds it up quite a bit. Glyphosate does not affect woody stems, branches or bark. The stuff with the warning on it has 2-4d in it, which will harm woody roots.

[simy1]

plantains become competitive when the soil becomes very compacted, and of course they are much more drought resistant than grass. if you leave a bare patch of hard clay alone, the first green for the first two years or so will be plantains only. another indicator of those conditions is thistle. so before you reseed you may want to loosen the soil, and after you may want to water.

[Timothy]

Good day Dan. I'm assuming that you used the hose-end applicator to apply the weed-b-gone..? If so, then this could be your issue. Hose-end applicators are terrible at metering the chemicals which makes the application really hit and miss. There are other real, inheriant dangers with hose-end applicators.... but I'll save that rant for later.

For weed b gone to be effective, the weeds need to be _actively_ growing. Seeing that you lawn is going dormant, I would assume that most everything is going dormant for the summer drought. Even though your watering the area, the growth rate is slowing down. With that said, you could expect results with in 3 to 5 days with final results with in 3 to 4 weeks with slow growth.

I would suggest that you get the concentrate of weed b gone and a tank sprayer. 1 gallon will do 500+ feet of coverage, so a gallon will spot spray a large area. I would also suggest that you wait to re-apply the weed b gone untill the end of summer. The chemical will be more effictive when the lawn comes back from being dormant. This will also be a great time to overseed the thin areas of the lawn and fertilize. Raise the mower hight to 2 1/2 to 3 inches to help the lawn fight off the weeds. Good luck.

[Suzy O]

Indeed, this is the way to go (RoundUp=glyphosate). It only kills the plant(s) you put it on and doesn't leach into the ground to affect the roots of desirable plants.

Suzy O, Zone 5, Wisconsin

[Daniel_B]

Good day Dan. I'm assuming that you used the hose-end applicator to apply the weed-b-gone..? If so, then this could be your issue. Hose-end applicators are terrible at metering the chemicals which makes the application really hit and miss.

I used the spot spray finger trigger type. I has the foaming type of spray so you can see where you have treated the weeds.

For weed b gone to be effective, the weeds need to be _actively_ growing. Seeing that you lawn is going dormant, I would assume that most everything is going dormant for the summer drought. Even though your watering the area, the growth rate is slowing down. With that said, you could expect

results with in 3 to 5 days with final results with in 3 to 4 weeks with slow growth.

I have been watering heavily under the birch trees, thus the grass and weeds are growing vigorously there. I did notice today that the plantain weeds have started to, not wilt, get brown spots on the leaves. Maybe another application of same will do the job. If not I will try the glyphosate stuff. Thanks for all of your help. Dan

[Suzy O]

Watering under the birch, eh? Better to focus your watering at and beyond the dripline where the tree would get water when it rains.

Suzy O