In the winter, the growth habit of your lawn will not be as lush and thick as it is during the other seasons, therefore the weeds will find it easier to penetrate. Prevention is always better than cure so do try to keep a bit of extra length on your lawn and ensure the ground doesn’t become compacted, particularly during and after periods of heavy rain. But if a few pesky weeds still manage to creep in, fear not, we have plenty of helpful tips and there are products available to help you clean up your lawn.
The best time to treat your winter weeds is of course during winter! By treating them now, you have more chance of getting rid of them before they germinate and drop their seeds back into your soil ready to attack bigger & better next time. So just how do you treat them? Well that depends on what it is you’re trying to get rid of! Here is a rundown of the most common culprits and the tips and products we’d recommend.
BROAD LEAF WEEDS, CLOVER & BINDI
A selective herbicide such as Sir Walter Buffalo Weed Control or Lawn Lovers Buffalo Weed Control will help to eradicate these weeds in all lawn types including kikuyu & couch, and are safe to use on most varieties of buffalo except the ST varieties. A repeat application may be required for particularly stubborn weeds like clover. If the clover still refuses to budge, try some Kamba-M, that should finish it off.
WINTER GRASS
If you have an invasion of Winter Grass, you’ll definitely want to treat it before it germinates. If you allow Winter Grass to drop its seeds, next winter it will be back, twice as badly as it was the previous year. Best plan of attack is to treat it as soon as it appears. It can be removed very easily by hand as it doesn’t have particularly deep roots and it doesn’t have any runners, growing in simple clumps. But if you’d prefer to spray, you’ll need to use Winter Grass Killer as a general purpose herbicide wont be effective. Amgrow Winter Grass Killer is safe to use on buffalo lawns (including Sir Walter), blue & common couches, but should be avoided on Kikuyu Lawns
SEDGE WEEDS INCLUDING NUTGRASS
The Sedge weed family includes pesky invasive grasses such at Nutgrass & Mulliubimby Couch. To kill off these grasses, you need a selective herbicide such as Amgrow Sedgehammer or Sempra. These chemicals are generally on the expensive side, however you need only a very small quantity to treat the affected area. At the end of the day though, if you don’t treat these weeds they will continue to multiply and infest your whole lawn, so its definitely worth saving your lawn investment in the long run.
ONION WEED
This one is a nightmare! Word of advice… never, ever attempt to remove Onion Grass by hand! When you pull on the top of the weed, the tiny bulbs in the soil detach & release resulting in the onion weed multiplying. Since you cannot spray Onion Weed with a selective herbicide, it is much more time consuming to eradicate as this will need to be done by spot weeding. So encouraging it to multiply is the last thing you want to do! To spot weed, mix a solution of Glyphosate & water in a small cup or weed wand. Add a dash of dishwashing liquid which will help break down the waxy coating on the leaf of the plant & allow the poison to penetrate. Paint this solution carefully onto the weed using the weed wand or a small brush, being careful not to get the solution on the surrounding lawn where at all possible, as this is an non-selective herbicide & will kill everything!
Don’t forget, its often the tools of the trade which tend to make a job such as spraying or spot weeding easier. By purchasing a pressure sprayer or spot weeding wand, you immediately take out allot of the frustration of treating the weeds as they’re simple to use, and designed for bigger areas so you’re not spending your time down on your hands & knees or running back & forth to the tap for a refill.
And finally, the most important tip yet. Each product comes with a dilution rate… use it!. ‘double-dosing’ or adding a few extra mls more for good luck can sometimes have the reverse effect and render the product ineffective. So make sure you stick to the correct rates and you should be successful.
All of the products mentioned including a range of pressure sprayers & weed wands are available from the Lawn Store at www.lawnstore.com.au
