Part 1 of 4 Blog Series
Weeds, weeds, and more weeds. Cincinnati area lawns are not looking their best right now. The heat-loving, warm season weeds have made their presence known. I can barely take a step in my lawn without stepping on crabgrass, goosegrass, nutsedge, or spurge. However, I have to stop myself from running to the shelf of weed killers in my garage.
Why? Because I have to check the weather forecast first.
There are a number of weed controls that kill weeds in the lawn and won’t hurt the grass. Fertilome’s Weed Free Zone will get the dandelions and spurge and Ortho’s Weed B Gone plus Crabgrass Control will brown out the crabgrass.
But here’s the caveat:
These chemicals will also damage the lawn at around 85-90 degrees. This damage could be compounded with the stressed conditions of the lawn due to the dry conditions we’ve had recently.
It’s a hard place to be right now if you have a lot of weeds in the lawn. Many weeds love the heat and are growing like there’s no tomorrow. That same heat prohibits the spraying of weed controls due to possible lawn damage.
My suggestion: wait it out.
If possible, wait for a few days with high temps in the low 80s and spray in the morning. If you have to spray now, use glysophate (Killzall). Accept the fact that whatever it hits will turn brown and then reseed 5 days later (you have to wait 2-4 weeks with the other products). If crabgrass is your problem, be at peace knowing that those crabgrass plants will die with the first hard frosts we get in the autumn. Just make sure you plan on using a pre-emergent crabgrass preventer next spring.
Next week I’ll detail steps in reseeding so you can get back a green and growing lawn this fall.
@whiteoakgardens