I spend a lot of time outside working on my lawn and it seems the more I try and make it a nice lawn the more weeds I get, I spent 3 hours the other night in my yard de-thatching the lawn by hand, and since that night it appears more weeds are coming up, If anyone can help identify them I would be so grateful! I am trying to do this all on my own but it just seems to get worse and worse. any help would be awesome!
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JKoutoupis
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- Location: Burlington, Ontario
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JKoutoupis
- Newly Registered
- Posts: 9
- Joined: Sun Jun 13, 2010 2:32 pm
- Location: Burlington, Ontario
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JKoutoupis
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applestar
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Most of them look like Virginia Copperleaf. Yellow Sweet Clover in it's first year and White probably Dutch - though it could be New Zealand - clover. You want a certain % of the lawn to be clover ( can't remember the ratio) for natural nitrogen fertilizer.
One photo, as far as I can tell, shows a lawn grass gone to seed which is not a bad thing.
Virginia Copperleaf is a great sacrificial crop for flea beetles because they go for them every time. I intentionally leave them growing and not weed them out around eggplants and potatoes. And my EP and P remain flea beetle-free.
If you do want to weed them out, they pull out pretty easily. You want to eliminate them before they set seed in leaf nodes if you don't want them to come back next year.
On second thought that's not Yellow Sweet Clover, it's Black Medic.
One photo, as far as I can tell, shows a lawn grass gone to seed which is not a bad thing.
Virginia Copperleaf is a great sacrificial crop for flea beetles because they go for them every time. I intentionally leave them growing and not weed them out around eggplants and potatoes. And my EP and P remain flea beetle-free.
If you do want to weed them out, they pull out pretty easily. You want to eliminate them before they set seed in leaf nodes if you don't want them to come back next year.On second thought that's not Yellow Sweet Clover, it's Black Medic.
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The Helpful Gardener
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OK, lets think about this...
What do weeds like?
What does turfgrass like?
Turfgrass likes an almost balanced fungal to bacterial ratio. Weeds like a far more bacterial soil, like a 1:2 F:B.
Turf grass likes it cool. Weeds like it hot.
Monocots like to grow straight up; weeds like to spread out a little.
Grass likes it wet; most weeds like dry...
Point by point...
Chemical fertilizers stimulate the bacterial side and set back fungal mass; coming off of chemicals it takes a while to get a lawn more fungal. SO until that happend the soil favors weeds. COmpost topdressing or compost teas can help return the natural balance to the soil and alleviate that some, but there will be a bump when you firsty start. But getting more fungal seems necessary here...
It's been hot, so there's that, but you seem to be cutting at two inches, which makes it worse. Grass wants to be three feet tall and every extra inch about doubles the amount of photsynthesis. I cut at four inches myself, and the weeds gets competed against in a much more effective manner...
so the grass grows taller, shades the weeds and makes lateral growth more difficult...
and shades the soil more, retaining moisture and keeping soil temps lower.
So favor grass and you get better grass. Favor weeds and you get better weeds. Cutting higher addresses all these issues. Questions?
HG
Danky, your 2,4,D is on the hit list as a probable carcinogen; not worth it especially if you have kids or pets...
What do weeds like?
What does turfgrass like?
Turfgrass likes an almost balanced fungal to bacterial ratio. Weeds like a far more bacterial soil, like a 1:2 F:B.
Turf grass likes it cool. Weeds like it hot.
Monocots like to grow straight up; weeds like to spread out a little.
Grass likes it wet; most weeds like dry...
Point by point...
Chemical fertilizers stimulate the bacterial side and set back fungal mass; coming off of chemicals it takes a while to get a lawn more fungal. SO until that happend the soil favors weeds. COmpost topdressing or compost teas can help return the natural balance to the soil and alleviate that some, but there will be a bump when you firsty start. But getting more fungal seems necessary here...
It's been hot, so there's that, but you seem to be cutting at two inches, which makes it worse. Grass wants to be three feet tall and every extra inch about doubles the amount of photsynthesis. I cut at four inches myself, and the weeds gets competed against in a much more effective manner...
so the grass grows taller, shades the weeds and makes lateral growth more difficult...
and shades the soil more, retaining moisture and keeping soil temps lower.
So favor grass and you get better grass. Favor weeds and you get better weeds. Cutting higher addresses all these issues. Questions?
HG
Danky, your 2,4,D is on the hit list as a probable carcinogen; not worth it especially if you have kids or pets...
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JKoutoupis
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