How to kill weeds and put a stop to them returning with less work and less chemical weed killers is discussed here. Weeds are hardy and as my dad used to say, “A weed is a wildflower that you don’t want in your lawn.” Wildflowers are beautiful on the prairies, the woods, forests, and deserts. With healthy grass, these unwanted nuisances will stop growing.
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Fertilizing
Too much fertilizer helps to encourage weed growth. Too little fertilizer leads to thin scant How to kill weedsgrass with patches of other growth between the grass, such as weeds.
The worse noxious grass to kill is Crabgrass with short roots that pull up easily by hand after a rain or watered on top. The purplish areas at the root crown actually look like crab’s claws. Annual Bluegrass and Bermuda grass are unwanted pests as well.
You can find a happy balance when you follow the manufacturer’s instructions on the package or bottle for fertilizers or weed killers. A high percent of controlled-release nitrogen, such as sulfur-coated urea, ureaform, or IBDU (Isolated Bile Duct Units) will give you a slow supply of nutrients for you grass in fertilizers.
Northern grass usually gets two applications of fertilizer each year with one in the spring and one in the fall. If you use a lawn service to do it for you, they will know your schedule each year.
Southern lawns usually respond well to three applications of one in the spring when the grass turns green, early summer, and once more in the fall.
Watering Frequency
Water deeply and occasionally. Of course, you have no control over rain. When you water often with a hose and only a light spray of water, all the weeds start appearing such as spurge, quackgrass, ground ivy (creeping Charlie), chickweed, chicory with the blue flowers, wild morning glory, and many more.
White and red clover and alfalfa usually have seeds blown from the places in which they grow. When your grass roots are deep from watering, the weeds will be choked out. You should give your grass at last 1-inch of water each week using an automatic sprinkler system or sprinklers attached to your hose. Most cities have water restrictions and you must abide by that.
How will you know if you have 1-inch of water? Put a short can on your lawn to measure it.
Mowing Height
You need to set your mower blade 2- to-4 inches above the ground. It’s easy to measure. Find the distance from the lower frame bottom to the blade bottom. When you mow too short, the grass leaves/blades become weak and unable to take in nutrients.
Light hits the surface of the soil and that stimulates latent seeds to sprout and grow.
Learn the Likes of Weeds
Ground Ivy likes damp soil and shade, while most other weeds like it hot and dry. Remove and thin out tree branches so your grass gets more sun. Plant an ivy or Hosta in shady areas with Bleeding Heart plants so lovely in the spring and early summer.
Improve your soil drainage by aerating small soil cores. Professionals can do this for you too since it is a laborious and a time consuming job.
Weeding
Weeding by hand is still the best approach but takes time and energy to do. Small lawns How to kill weedswon’t take long and you can keep it under control by pulling them before they flower and turn to seed dropping those seed. You can also buy a hand-sized bottle of weed killer for spot killing weeds.
Dandelions have long and deep taproots that are hard to pull by hand once mature. They are delicious greens in early spring before they bloom if they’ve never had chemicals sprayed on them. You cannot leave one bit of the dandelion’s root in the ground since it will regrow itself.
The best time to dig out or pull weeds is after it’s rained or been watered. You can use diggers, but they require strength, especially for women and seniors who don’t stoop or bend well anymore.
Herbicides
For how to kill weeds the herbicides can be used as the last choice doing it yourself or hiring professionals who do it in the spring and fall.
Follow the directions on the package or you can kill the grass or wanted plants and bushes. The professionals usually use a fertilizer and herbicide mixed in one spray. You can also purchase both together to do it yourself.
Growing a healthy lawn with proper mowing and watering can keep weeds from sprouting.
Final Thoughts
When using chemicals, keep the kids and pets out of the sprayed areas when you are learning how to kill weeds. If you use a weed eater on your lawn and weeds you might like to read about how to restring it here.
