LAWN HELP - Help me ID and KILL this weed!

[groovyone]

This crap has taken over my lawn. It is like a really fine clover almost. What is it, and how do I kill it?

[BCPhoto]

This is chickweed. It is a common winter weed most places. Notice the multi-petal white flowers. At first I thought it was buttonweed, but the flowers are wrong. It happens to be a food source for some bird species, as it is a very soft-leaved plant, and produces lots of seeds. Unfortunately, most weeds do.

Your biggest problem is that you likely don't have a very healthy lawn to begin with where this infestation is, and chickweed is advantageous, meaning it will fill in any space where your lawn shows a weakness.

Chickweed happens to be a low-growing plant, so if you think you can mow it out of your lawn, think again, it will love you for it. This goes back to needing a healthy turf. Do you want to use chemicals? You can if you want, but beware of what I mentioned about the birds above. If you want to do it the natural way, I recommend raising the mowing height of your mower to a fairly high level, say 3-4 inches in the worst infested area. Keep in mind that this will only work if you do it until next year, and KEEP your grass tall in this area. What you are attempting to do in naturally smother the chickweed with the established turf you have, and DONT mow your grass short.

If you DO want to chemical control it, I suggest hunting for a product with the active ingredient Triclopyr in it. Careful with it, measure properly, and do EXACTLY as the label says.

And good luck!

[groovyone]

Thanks a ton for the help! The entire neighborhood seems to be overrun by this. It is in my back yard which used to be invincible until the low rain last summer took out chunks of it while I was gone. Most of the areas where it is are grass free at this point.

I have tried avoiding chemicals all summer and fall, but at this point it is SO out of hand I may just need to take it out. I tried pulling up sections of it but it just shreds.

[BCPhoto]

If it has "taken over the neighborhood" then your comments about drought stress make perfect sense. Unfortunately, it may be a long uphill battle. If you are willing to try an experiment, you could do this: Assume first that you are willing to re-sod the lawn in the affected area. If this is true, then you could attempt spraying the entire affected area with roundup to kill everything off, then continue by tilling under the affected area, a good 5-6 inches down. Once you have it tilled under (stress again--Good And Deep) then you can level the soil and re-sod over it. What you are doing is attempting to bury the weed and seed deeper than it can fight to effectively sprout next winter. At the same time, you are reintroducing a healthy sod over the top. In the process, you have also aerated the soil and helped improve it. Then, after re-sodded, go back to my original suggestion of cutting the lawn to a 3-4 inch height there, and you MAY just successfully re-establish a healthy lawn.

I know it isn't the easiest way, but it just may be your best bet. I honestly hate using the chemicals a lot on my lawn since I have so many fruit and citrus trees here around my lawn. Almost 90% of my landscape is edible plants, and I try to work on natural health of my lawn where I can. The one chemical that I do break down and use is roundup, since it is essentially a salt that burns plants (oversimplified I know).

Glad to help. Hope it works!

[groovyone]

It is bad enough that I would not be surprised if I had to resod. My biggest issue may be that the lazy cable guys ran everyone's cable to the box in my yard and buried them like 2" deep at best.

[surlynkid]

Originally Posted by groovyone

It is bad enough that I would not be surprised if I had to resod. My biggest issue may be that the lazy cable guys ran everyone's cable to the box in my yard and buried them like 2" deep at best.

I'd cut right through those cables and never blink. They'll learn next time. At least they buried it. I had some across my mulch bed in the yard. every time i weed whacked at that spot, it tore up that cable. If you like your neighbors, warn them first that you are digging, and if it is 2" deep, they are losing their cable. That might prompt them to call it in before you destroy it.

[Abel]

great info bryce!

[Orogeny]

I get a good crop of this stuff every winter and I actually have a very healthy lawn. It dies once the temperatures start rising in another month or so. Roundup works great, but it unfortunately works great on every green plant it touches, so be carefull unless you really are planning on re-sodding. You might try applying a pre-emergent herbicide in the fall. I think that is prior to germination, but you might want to check with a nursery.

[groovyone]

I should have taken better care of the lawn before winter but it is low on my priority list. Now I have to do repair. It sounds like I may be better off pulling up what I can and waiting for the grass to recover a little. Should warm up the next few weeks.

[BCPhoto]

Here's another secret use for roundup. You absolutely MUST make sure that your entire lawn is dormant in the winter to do this, and the only thing that must be green are your weeds. I've done this with baseball and softball fields at work. Right now if you are having weed problems, you should should be seeing lots of henbit, chickweed, and clover in your yard. You can spray your entire yard with roundup to kill off the weeds. Here's the great thing. Clover fixes nitrogen and if you time everything just right, before your turf comes out of dormancy, you will release that back into your yard as natural fertilizer. Bluebonnets also do this. Neat huh!

[groovyone]

My grass is definitely not green right now and seems to be dormant