southwest lawn care question, especially dandelion control

[bill]

Hi, I am in Albuquerque, new mexico. I have some questions about lawn care, especially weed control.

I asked a landscaping company installed my backyard lawn this January. It was good until about 1-2 month ago: it seems all out of a sudden lots lots of dandelions coming up over a night! Before that there was few weeds.

My wife suspected that's because usually I mowed front yard just before back yard and our front yard always has dandelion.

Now my question is how to control it.

I went to Home Depot, the guy there told me to buy Scotts Plus 2 Weed Control, I did that, but it worked not very good. Then I went to Rowlands, a famous nursery store here, the guy told me to buy some product branded Fertilome, again it worked some, but some so good.

I checked web and book store, someone claims that no easy way at all to terminate dandelion. The only effective way is to pull them out by hand!

Because we are disappointed by the products, so we did it today, -- pull them by hand.

It is so much work! We did most, but not all. the reasons are some broken roots are still there, some are so small that it is hard to pull them from the good grass, and last, we are too tired to complete.

The question: 1) In pulling the dandelions, we digged many holes. How should we do with them? Put some dirt, compost or it's fine to do nothing?

2) How to do with the small ones, wait until they grow? 3) In general what's your experience of southwest lawn care? Someone does not like commercial programs such as Scotts program, how do you think?

Thanks.

[S. M. Henning]

Put any soil you removed back into the hole and let it go. You can add soil or compost if you are concerned about having a holes in your lawn

That is all you can do.

In a dry climate, many granular products may not work. They require either rain or irrigation within a couple days after applying. The spray products work much better. There are liquid products that have applicators available so that you can walk around and just spray the weeds and not waste money on the rest of the lawn. You must do this when there will be no rain or irrigation for a couple days. It is a lot easier than digging.

Personally, I like the nice yellow flowers that appear in my lawn every spring. They bloom about a couple weeks and then just look green like the rest of the lawn. It is better to improve the health of the lawn than to spend a lot of time on the weeds. As long as your neighbors have weeds, the seeds will drift onto your property. If you choose to fight the weeds, it is an endless battle.

[Mark Herbert]

I agree. I also live in Albuquerque and get a ton of baby dandelions in my lawn in the fall and got tired of picking them. I overseed at this time of year and water heavily; my lawn will thicken up so much in the next month that those weeds will mostly get choked out, and my lawn always looks great in the summer (I use a pre-emergent crabgrass inhibitor and weed-n-feed in the early spring, and plain fertilizer mid-summer; I don't use insecticidal lawn food).

[Mark Simon]

For dandelions I've found using a spray broadleaf weed killer according to the directions works well.

[Frogleg]

I have had good luck spot-treating dandelions with a broadleaf killer (Weed B Gon). Even with many next door, this reduced mine to a manageable number after a couple of years. I don't think they can ever be completely eradicated.