For those who love having a manicured lawn, weeds are public enemy number one, spoiling an otherwise soft expanse of beautiful green grass. The first step toward weed control in your lawn is keeping your grass healthy and vigorous. Dense, actively growing turf is less likely to play host to invading weeds. Still, it’s impossible to keep all weeds out of your lawn all the time and at some point you will need to take action. Here is more of what you need to know to keep weeds away.
Identify Your Weeds
Most homeowners will recognize dandelions in their lawn, but there are several other common weeds in Ontario including crabgrass, buckhorn plantain, Canada thistle and clover. If you are planning to use herbicides for weed control, it is important to identify your weeds correctly. Consult with our garden care professionals if you are not sure.
Mechanical Control
Mechanical control is a fancy term for pulling weeds by hand. As long as you don’t have acres of lawn, this can actually be an effective method of weed control. If you are hand-pulling weeds, your plan should be to strike early and often. Pull weeds before many of them get established, checking your lawn frequently. Use a narrow trowel to remove as much of the root system as possible.
There are other management techniques for weed control in your lawn that don’t rely on chemicals. Be sure not to cut too close to the ground. Grass blades with some height help to deter young weeds; removing no more than one-third of the grass height is generally recommended.
Herbicides and Chemicals
Herbicides and chemicals are no longer used for the control of weeds and pests. Instead, new methods using iron-based products selectively attack weeds like dandelion, English daisy, white clover, black medic, bull thistle and Canada thistle, moss, algae and a whole lot more. These products absorb through the leaves and essentially cause the weeds to rust at the cellular level through iron oxidation. Results are visible within a few hours.
For lawn perfectionists, the most effective weed control will include some use of all the basic methods. For those who don’t mind the occasional weed, keeping the lawn healthy and mowing at the right height, along with pulling obvious weeds now and then, will be enough. Whatever your approach, be sure to take time to enjoy your lawn. Call us today to see what Lawrence Park Complete Garden Care can do to ensure you enjoy your quality time.
“Look at me I’m a dandelion” photo credit to Warren Brown under cc 2.0
Field of Thistles photo credit to Alejandro Erickson under cc 2.0
RSS FEED