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Weeds in lawn
BK2022
Posts: 4
Hi all,
This my first post and sorry if this has been addressed before, but with so many discussion posts it was hard to find the specific answer.
Last year (Aug/Sept) I removed all of the weeds, scarified and overseeded my garden. It nearly killed me (its over 1000 sq m), but the results looked good at the time - well, after about 4/5 weeks anyway as the new grass came in.
However, this year all of the new grass seems to have been taken over by orchard grass and couch(?) grass. There are dandelions, creeping buttercup, germander speedwell, clover and dock everywhere.
I have almost completely lost the will to try and tackle it again having put in so much effort last year, but I will try again!
Has anyone any advice? I was going to try and remove as may weeds as I can manually ( I will resort to spraying if I have to) and then feed the lawn (again) with a summer feed. Hopefully later in the year it will look a little better and I will consider overseeding again (I still have some of the seed from last year)
My question really is whether this is a waste of time? Will I find, as happened this year, that the weeds just come back worse than ever? Is there a better way to do this?
Thanks!
This my first post and sorry if this has been addressed before, but with so many discussion posts it was hard to find the specific answer.
Last year (Aug/Sept) I removed all of the weeds, scarified and overseeded my garden. It nearly killed me (its over 1000 sq m), but the results looked good at the time - well, after about 4/5 weeks anyway as the new grass came in.
However, this year all of the new grass seems to have been taken over by orchard grass and couch(?) grass. There are dandelions, creeping buttercup, germander speedwell, clover and dock everywhere.
I have almost completely lost the will to try and tackle it again having put in so much effort last year, but I will try again!
Has anyone any advice? I was going to try and remove as may weeds as I can manually ( I will resort to spraying if I have to) and then feed the lawn (again) with a summer feed. Hopefully later in the year it will look a little better and I will consider overseeding again (I still have some of the seed from last year)
My question really is whether this is a waste of time? Will I find, as happened this year, that the weeds just come back worse than ever? Is there a better way to do this?
Thanks!
0
Posts
Can you post some photos (click on the little 'landscape' icon above the text box you type in and follow the instructions ... if your pic doesn't upload reducing the size usually works ... if not, shout and we'll try to help).
Meanwhile hopefully @MrMowand some of the other lawn specialists will see this ...
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
If you clear all those weeds, including the deep roots of dandelions, docks etc, then re-sow and let the grass grow it will have a better chance of success but I like to see daisies and speedwell and clover in a lawn. They're much better for wildlife diversity.
If you don't get out those deep roots you're just making root cuttings which will produce new plants and more than the single one that was there before.
To answer the questions first (then I'll try to post some photos).
I usually cut the grass to 50mm (approx 2 inches) at the lowest. Interestingly when I purchased the seed for overseeding last year I was told that particular mixture preferred to be short and so keeping it regularly cut it would thrive at short length but the 'rubbish' other grasses would not like it and die off. Sadly this has not happened.
I thought I had cleared all of the weeds last year (and as many roots as I could get) and the scarifying should have helped too (I thought) by removing the moss which would be a nice bed for the weed seeds.
There are areas of the garden where I have wild flowers growing to keep all of the bees happy
The pictures are below and any advice would be welcomed. There are areas (not shown) where the ground is 80% dandelion and the grass has been choked out. That is one of the most frustrating things as I pulled all of them out last year, including their long tap roots. So to see them come back in greater numbers this year is really disappointing.
I appreciate that the lawn is going to take work every year and I am fine with that. But to see it worse than last year really hurts and seriously impacts my motivation this year!
This grass below is not too bad, though the creeping buttercups have made their presence known here too:
The next two show the other parts of the garden where the grass is really poor and you can see dock, buttercups and clover.
https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/roundup-total-weedkiller-gel-150ml/p/0313328
works really well on the larger leaved weeds that appear in lawns such as dock, dandelion, buttercup, mouse ear, plantain etc.
Follow the instructions … dab the gel on a leaf or two and then leave the plant until it’s gone brown which shows that the roots have died. Then you can remove it if it hasn't already shrivelled up and blown away. Then you can either sprinkle a few grass seeds in the space or wait for the surrounding grass to spread and cover it, which it will.
Hope that helps 😊
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I do not mind the clover as much as the dock and buttercups - they just completely starve out the good grass (or at least it should be, the seed was expensive) and take over. The top picture is ok - that is the small front garden and the soil seems to be better there. But the back garden......Imagine the second picture replicated in most of the garden
I will try the Round Up gel. I did a DIY version of that by soaking a sponge in a glyphosate weedkiller (but not Round Up) and, yes, it did shrivel the individual leaves, but weeks later the rest of the weed is still going strong.
I will be going away on hols for 2 weeks in a bit and I was considering feeding the garden again and hoping when I came back that the grass would have improved and started to compete with the weeds, but maybe I need to do a weed and feed.
Thanks again
But I still would like to have a nice lawn as well - I know - I want my cake and eat it
I've a small enough lawn and followed all the steps you did, multiple times over a few years. I've even killed off many patches of rougher grass and reseeded. But the rougher grass never truly disappears.
From my experience, if you want a beautiful lawn with just the high quality grass from your new seed then you're better of killing off the lawn and starting again. It'll be less effort and heartache in the long run. Within 6 weeks you'll have a beautiful lawn with only your new seed in it.
When I moved here, the front grass was mainly buttercups and dandelions. It's pretty weed free now, apart from the odd one or two, which I treat as described. I don't use anything else on it now apart from the odd feed. Regular cutting at the right height is important too. If it's cut too short, that suits weeds, not grass.
Like you, I have plenty of other suitable planting for wildlife etc. and I like to have a little bit of grass. Nothing wrong with that, even if it's not a perfect lawn by any means - I have all sorts of other things growing in it, but leaving it longer means those plants don't get shorn, and at a distance it all looks green.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...