If you are enthusiastic about tending your lawn, you will always notice foreign growth from miles away. The type of grass projects a uniformity and any unevenness like what the crabgrass causes can be an eye sore. Unfortunately when you are not careful in tending your lawn, this tough grass type gets in and can prove hard to remove. The crabgrass always appears in spring.
Once you are in the season you probably should have a general plan of controlling this hard to remove grass type. Oh and here’s an important, even if slightly concerning, piece of information: this is not exactly a walk in the park. One of the options that you can use is the application of a pre-emergence herbicide that you can apply after the second mowing. This should probably be at the onset of spring.
Using the crabgrass preventer you can be able to stop the grass before it sprouts. This granular based chemical is applied on the surface and creates a barrier on the soil surface. In this way the seeds of the crabgrass cannot be able to sprout in their season. Generally when the seed germinates, the herbicide terminates this process by poisoning the crabgrass seedling that eventually dies.
Sometimes in order to keep the lawn fertilized, you might need to mix the pre-emergence herbicide with fertilizer and apply the mixture. The mixture is best applied just before the rains so that the herbicide and fertilizer work effectively.
When using the pre-emergence herbicide you will need to understand that it has a life span of about fifty days and only works when the crabgrass has not germinated yet. Once the germination has taken place the herbicide will have no effect on the crabgrass. Therefore for your herbicide to work most effectively, it must be applied in the most appropriate conditions within this window. Chances are that if this window expires the crabgrass can still sprout and grow in which case the pre-emergence herbicide will not have achieved the intended purpose. Apart from the crabgrass, the pre-emergence herbicide also affects other grasses like the ryegrass, fescue or bluegrass. Therefore if you are thinking of seeding your lawn then you cannot apply the pre-emergence herbicide at the same time because the herbicide will kill your grass as well. The simplest thing would be to apply the pre-emergence herbicide in spring and do the lawn seeding in late summer. This way you will not destroy your grass together with the undesirable crabgrass.
If you eyes are keen and your lawn is not so extensive a physical inspection is possible. This will definitely help you to identify crabgrass as soon as it sprouts. Once you have these seedlings in sight, you can physical uproot them and the other grass types will quickly fill up the space that is left. Certainly you will notice these sprouts as light green blades of grass that quickly thicken out. Of course pulling may not be so effective if the grass has pushed its roots deep enough meaning that you need to consider other alternatives.
Alternatively you can apply a spray directly on to the crabgrass after it has sprouted. The chemical used here will be a post-emergence herbicide. You expect this spray to work two weeks after the spraying. These sprays are able to work on moist soil and dry plant. Therefore it is equally important for you to do your timing accurately in order to ensure that the spraying is effective. It may be advisable that you repeat the spraying after a few days according to the product instructions.
You can still control and eliminate crabgrass naturally by keeping your lawn healthy. If you can manage to develop a thick healthy lawn canopy, then this will naturally prevent the crabgrass from sprouting from under because of lack of light. In order to accelerate the development of such a canopy you might need to do thorough watering to help the grass rooting system.
Apart from regular and thorough watering it is also important to mow regularly. It is preferable that you mow to within three inches. If you mow the grass to less than two inches it is likely that it will affect the vitality and open up for weeds to emerge.
In order to avoid weeds from taking over the lawn, you should avoid or reduce compaction. Compaction will limit the grass root system from adequate development and affect water absorption and retention. This gives weeds a chance to come in and compete the grass. You can ascertain the type of soil on your lawn and hire an aerator at least once in a year to loosen up the soil.
If you are apprehensive about chemical based products like the post and pre-emergence herbicides, you can turn to natural products to control the crabgrass menace. One example that you can use is the corn gluten meal. This is a corn byproduct that has proteins that inhibit the weed seedling roots. However the cost of application is prohibitive and this is only practical if you have a small lawn to take care of.
In order to effectively control crabgrass, the best place to start would be for you to identify the occurrence of this weed. Once this has been accomplished you can choose among the methods mentioned what is most suitable for you. Of course the effectiveness of the eradication process will depend on the time of the year.