Ken’s Quick Tip: What is the best weed control this time of year?

Mid spring in North Texas is a strange in between time.  We typically get a lot of rain coupled with days that can be warm and humid and then turn cool and blustery.  Often in the same week!  The end result is you may be seeing a bumper crop of weeds in your lawn and wondering what to do.

Believe it or not my advice is your lawn mower.  What you are more than likely seeing now are winter weeds.  There are three in particular that are very common in our area at the time of year.

1.  Henbit (the weed with purple flowers)
2.  Rescue grass (a tall, bright green grassy weed)
3.  Poa annua (a very short grassy weed with tiny seeds)

All of these can be prevented by using a weed preventive in the winter, but once they have sprouted, they are hard to control with any products because they are no longer growing enough to absorb the spray.

That’s why I recommend you mow your lawn short (but please don’t scalp it!) and often.

Even though it seems counter intuitive, these winter weeds are struggling to grow right now.  They thrive in cooler temperatures which we are getting less and less as we head into May.  Every time you mow, you cut them back, which makes it harder for them to grow in what isn’t the best environment (warmer weather.)  Eventually they will give up and go away and then you can prevent them from coming back next year by applying a good preventative.

You may be asking yourself if this means you should skip lawn care during this time of the year. Not at all.

Once those winter weeds finally go away, you want to make sure new ones don’t take their place so now is the time of year when we are applying a spring and summer weed preventative.  It’s important to remember that a healthy growing lawn is one of the best weed preventatives there is so we also apply a slow release fertilizer to help the lawn fill back into the gaps those winter weeds left.