I've got some sort of broad leaf grass that has moved into my garden from God only knows where. Its bad enough that I have to live with my neighbors @#$&*&^&* Chinese Elms coming up everywhere, but now this grass. As I said, its broadleaf, has a root system that goes way down even for tiny growth above ground making it impossible to puill out unless the ground is very wet. When it comes up it typically unfurls the leafs(blades) and lays flat on the ground. It does not send out feelers that reroot from the stems but sends several blades out. Any idea what type it is?
it's crabgrass. It likes poor packed soil and if you were to topdress your lawn and fertilize it, and not cut your good grass lower than three inches, your good grass will choke it out. By cutting the grass too short actually allows crabgrass to get a better hold on the soil as it has more ground to estabilish. spot treating with herbacide would do like RoundUp as it breaks down once applied to individual clumps, or wetting the area down and pulling it up, then put rich topsoil in the spots and seed with a good grass to reclaim the area. At least you don't have the insidious Johnson's grass...........madgardener
"madgardener" wrote in news:VJ4Ra.2606$ snipped-for-privacy@fe04.atl.webusenet.com:
I had some grass-like stuff in my yard, too. If I recall correctly, the leaves were oval, about 2" in length, light green color. After reading about crabgrass (I forget the other names for it), I came up with pretty much the same things madgardener wrote. Although I think there was something about corn gluten being a good herbicide or pre-emergent, not sure. Anyway, was probably last month that I dealt with it, it hadn't shot up any flowers yet. IIRC, crab grass is dormant in the fall, so maybe it'll come back next year. This might be a stupid or 'asking for trouble' way to deal with it, so use at your own risk, but what I did was weed whack the crab out of all the foliage, right down to soil level. Lawn looked like a couple of goats came through, but the next day Mother Nature dumped half the Indian Ocean on me (sorry for the rest of you having droughts; it's been swampy here), and now the regular grass is growing back nicely. I did hand pick off some stragglers and the roots were not deep at all (about the same length as the leaf), so either it hadn't established itself or my stuff wasn't the same as yours. For what it's worth I "aerated" the soil last fall. I put "aerated" in quotes because it wasn't core aeration, but the other kind with rotating blades (that some people say compact the soil rather than aerate). Anyway, it also had the side benefit of ripping up some huge layers of thatch, which might have been aeration enough. I only mention it because of the comment about liking poor packed soil.
Salty Thumb wrote in news:fB5Ra.7369$ snipped-for-privacy@nwrddc02.gnilink.net:
he he, not such a good idea. Being blind, I did not notice (and the leaves haven't unfurled yet), but the 'crab grass' came right back with the rest of the 'good grass'. Back to square one.
"Shepherd" wrote in news:1cfRa.57466$ snipped-for-privacy@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:
Glad to hear I'm not the only one trying the weed-whacker approach! Although I've read someone here mention that bacteria like acetic acid a lot, so I wonder how much of the vinegar is left after a few days.
Most of my stuff seems to be coming back identically, so I might try some vinegar, too.
"Shepherd" wrote in news:SvGRa.60256$ snipped-for-privacy@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:
Not yet (also don't know where my torch stuff is), but I was musing about covering them with some old glass window panes. The last time I accidently did that, it made a nice brown square that lasted for over a week. I don't recall how long I left the glass sitting out though. Also, I think I read that crab grass likes heat, so I'd like to get some more info first ... wondering if the crab grass will just laugh at me while I'm shriveling the good grass that I'd like to have crowd out the crab grass. It's going to be rainy here for a while, otherwise, I'd do a little experiment.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.