Weed control help !!

[JS]

I have a major problem controlling this trouble weed on my backyard. I have sprayed the whole area with the liquid weed control I bought at my local Home Depot two times but it did not appear to work. Perhaps, I did not use the right one.

Could some body help me indentify the type of weed and hopefully advise me what kind of weed control I should use.

Thanks in advance,

Here are link to the images I took:

[Kevin Cherkauer]

It looks like crab grass from here. This is an annual grass with broad, ugly blades that tends to sprawl out like the arms of a crab and look like hell. Most weed chemicals designed for lawns are specific to killing broadleaf plants (dicotyledons), because most weeds are dicots while grass is a monocotyledon and thus unaffected by this type of poison. The problem with crab grass is it is a monocot, not a dicot (being just another species of grass), so will not be killed by these chemicals. On the other hand, if you use grass-killing chemicals, they will kill not only the crab grass but also the desired lawn grass.

Crab grass has to be controlled with a pre-emergent chemical that kills the seeds. This works by killing only seeds, not adult plants. Since crab grass is an annual, it has to come up from seed fresh each year. You have to put down the crab grass killer prior to the sprouting of the seeds, i.e. in very late winter. Once they have sprouted it's too late.

For this year you could get a spray bottle of grass killer and spot spray the individual crab grass plants, but this is going to be a lot of work judging from the number of them you have in the photos. Or you could put down a broad-spectrum like Roundup that kills everything, then replant the entire lawn with new grass seed. It takes surprisingly little time to get a fully mature lawn this way -- with water, sun, and warm weather, it can take as little as six weeks from the time you plant to the time the new lawn is mature. (If you go for sod it will be much more expensive, and half of it will probably die anyway.)

Utopia in Decay -- The future is coming to get you.

Cherkauer

Could some body help me indentify the type of weed and hopefully advise me what kind of weed control I should use.

Thanks in advance,

Here are link to the images I took:

[Pat Kiewicz]

Perhaps,

You have one or more types of coarse, grassy weeds growing in your yard. Stong possibility: quack grass (especially pic #2). Other coarse perennial grasses that might fit your pictures include orchard grass and various non-lawn type fescue and rye grasses. (I'm basing this on problem grasses in northern areas like mine, as you don't appear to say where you are located.)

Since these grasses grow taller than the your more desirable lawn, it should be possible to spot treat them with glyphosate by applied with some sort of sponge or wick (so only the weedy grass contacts the herbicide). Use extreme caution, as this will any other plants it comes in contact with, including your desirable lawn.

They next thing to do would be to pump up your lawn by mowing it taller (and being sure to use a sharp blade!), core aeration followed by an application of a slow release fertizer and proper watering for your soil conditions. (Sandy soils need more frequent, but shorter duration waterings than clay soils.)

[George.com]

I removed significant growth of cooch grass in my lawn by hand painting (with a small paint brush) round up onto 1-2 leaves per plant, or where there was a clump of it, spraying a little dribble into the centre of the clump. It is quite labour intensive but quite relaxing on a hottish summers day. I liked the other grasses I had & they had acclimatised to my soil conditions over several decades. The cooch has all but gone now & the other grasses grown thick & lush.

rob

[Wilson]

sometime in the recent past JS posted this:

What,? You didn't just nuke it first? The lawn was an invention of an arrogant aristocracy who just wanted to show they could afford to waste good garden space. Sprayed the whole f***ing yard, oh my God!

Crab grass, what did you expect to get to survive the poison, Fescue?

[Sheldon]

coarse grasses, what Long Islanders call barnyard grass... it's quite obvious why you have it in your lawn, you hate to mow. Any chemical that kills it will kill your other grass as well. It's very easy for you to get rid of it, you need to mow much more often (at least twice a week) and mow shorter (set your mower no higher than two inches). That type of grass has shallow roots, when the ground is dry pull up the remaining stubborn clumps. If you return to your lax mowing it will quickly return, you caught it from your neighbors, who likely also hate to mow.

[ray.cruz]

If you need to pull established clumps of your wayward grass, the quickest way is with a weed twister. There are several out there that can do the job. One even has a drill-powered model to save more time.

If you can't kill it, twist it!