Even though you may still have snow on your lawn, spring will be here before you know it. When the forsythia bush comes into full bloom, you know it’s time to put down pre-emergent weed control.
In this blog post, you’ll learn more about grassy weeds and how to prevent them, including
- How to Identify Grassy Weeds in Your Lawn
- Pre-Emergent Herbicide Stops Grassy Weeds Before They Germinate
- Can You Still Seed Your Lawn After Pre-Emergent Treatment?
- 7 Tips for Maintaining a Weed-Free Lawn.
How to Identify Grassy Weeds in Your Lawn
The grassy weeds that invade your South-Central PA lawn are crabgrass and its cousins. Crabgrass pops up in yards with thin and weak grass. Crabgrass’s branches resemble crab legs, growing from early spring through early fall.
You don’t want to ignore crabgrass because it can choke out the healthy grass in your lawn. However, your lawn has a lot of competition with crabgrass because the grassy weed is aggressive.
For example, crabgrass generates 150,000 seeds that stay in the ground for years before germinating. It’s a warm-season annual weed that thrives during our hot summers.
Crabgrass characteristics include
- Starts germinating in early spring when soil temperatures reach 55°F for five days or more.
- Two types of crabgrass plague Pennsylvania lawns: Hairy and smooth.
- You have smooth crabgrass if the weed has wide and short leaves; hairy crabgrass has longer leaves.
- You’ll notice hairy stems in large crabgrass that can also be purple.
- Crabgrass flowers have two to four finger-like spikey blooms.
- Crabgrass spreads along the ground with leaves spreading outward.
Other grassy weeds affecting PA lawns include:
- Dallisgrass
- Foxtail
- Goosegrass
- Nimblewill
- Quackgrass
Learn more: Tomlinson Bomberger Lawn Care Programs: Which One Is Right for You?
Pre-Emergent Herbicide Stops Grassy Weeds Before They Germinate
Our Tomlinson Bomberger technicians are trained and certified to apply all grassy weed control on your lawn. Our techs apply pre-emergent herbicides around the time when the forsythia bushes bloom.
We need soil temperatures to be 55°F for five days before putting down pre-emergent herbicide.
How does pre-emergent herbicide stop grassy weeds, including crabgrass, from emerging? The grassy weed control forms a thin barrier stopping crabgrass before it pops out of the ground.
Can You Still Seed Your Lawn After Pre-Emergent Treatment?
We don’t recommend seeding your lawn after we apply grassy weed control. If you want to plant grass seed this spring, we recommend waiting for us to apply Dimension later in the season.
Dimension is a pre-emergent herbicide that can be applied later in the spring after grass seedlings have emerged aboveground.
Dimension isn’t available to homeowners because it needs to be applied by a certified lawn technician. We’ll also need to apply post-emergent grassy weed control later in the spring since some crabgrass will be established on your lawn.
The best time to overseed a lawn is in the fall, and we recommend that you hold off on seeding until September or October. You’ll have fewer headaches with grassy weeds and will be able to establish a strong turf during cool months with less weed competition.
Spring Lawn Care: 7 Tips for Maintaining a Weed-Free Lawn
How you take care of your lawn between our visits also determines how many weeds you have in it. Here are seven tips to prevent weeds from taking over your yard:
- Ensure your mower blades are razor sharp: You want sharp blades that make a clean cut. Dull blades can tear the turf, leading to insect infestation and fungal diseases.
- Remove only the top third of your turfgrass: Mowing low stresses your lawn. Instead, raise your mower blades to remove only the top third.
- Mow in different directions: You don’t want to mow in the same direction every week because one side will be longer. Instead, promote turfgrass health by switching your mowing direction each week.
- Mow in the morning: Wait until the dew is dry before mowing. You want to finish cutting your grass before the hottest part of the day.
- Invest in irrigation sprinklers: Sprinkler systems provide an efficient way to water your lawn, especially if you have municipal restrictions on water use.
You can schedule cycle-and-soak watering by having your system turn on for 15 minutes and then turn off, allowing the water to percolate into the soil.
- Water deeply and infrequently: While it may seem counterintuitive, you should water your lawn only 1-2 times a week, even during July, the hottest month of the year.
Deep watering allows moisture to go down into the roots to provide enough water to last the following week.
- Fall aeration and overseeding: The relentless hot summer with little rain and plenty of foot traffic compacts the soil and prevents nutrients, oxygen, and water from seeping deep into it. As a result, your turfgrass weakens, and weeds take over.
Aeration relieves soil compaction, allowing overseeding, fertilization, oxygen, and rainwater to soak into the soil.
Schedule Your Grassy Weed Control Today
Don’t delay; make your grassy weed control appointment today by filling out our contact form or calling us at 717-399-1991.
Sources:
LawnLove.com, How to Identify and Control Grassy Weeds.
Weeds.CES.NCSU.edu, Lectures 5 & 6: Preemergence Herbicides.
