What is a weed? The simple answer is anything you don’t want growing. Weeds fall into three categories: grasses like crabgrass, broad leaf-like henbit, and sedges. From here they are broken down into annual or perennial categories. These categories must be known if you are to be victorious in the fight against them. It is also very important to know the type of lawn and how many square feet of lawn you have.

Annual weeds germinate from seed, grow to maturity, and die within twelve months. Crabgrass is an annual summer weed and henbit is an annual winter weed. Annual weeds are best controlled with a properly timed application of pre-emergent herbicides. If we miss the timing, they can also be controlled with post-emergent herbicides.

Perennial weeds live more than one year. They can reproduce from stolons, rhizomes, tubers, and seeds. Pre-emergent herbicides are only used to control the spread of seeds but it will not kill the parent. To rid an area of perennial weeds requires a post-emergent herbicide applied during the active growing season. Dallisgrass is a perennial grassy weed and Dollarweed is an example of a broadleaf. The last category is the sedges. The most common in our area is nutsedge. Sedges need to be treated like perennial weed. To kill the plants, use a post-emergent herbicide that is labeled for the type of sedge you are fighting.

Take a look at our Product Application Guides and learn what to apply and when to apply it, to control weeds and give you a beautiful lawn.

St. Augustine Guide – Click here to view & print

Bermuda Grass Guide –Click here to view & print

Fall leaves tend to fall this time of year, are you doing with them? Most folks will bag them, take the bag to the curb and let the city (pick one) take them away to destinations unknown. What they really do is make compost out of them to save room in the landfill. A noble endeavor to be sure but, you can save some of the bagging and trips to the curb if you reuse what Mother Nature has provided. This is not an effort to undermine a city’s recycling programs. This is an effort to make use of the resources that we have available. All that is required is a small amount of your energy and a mulching mower. The mulching mower is kind of critical considering it can take whole leaves as long as 2 years to decompose.

If it sounds like I’m asking everyone to start a compost pile, I’m not. But if composting looks like a good idea, then, by all means, start composting. What I’m talking about is using the fall leaves for something other than city compost. Once leaves have been mulched they make a fantastic soil amendment. For bare areas in the lawn, work 4 or 5 inches of mulched leaves into the soil with a little molasse or high nitrogen fertilizer. Then, cover the area with another 4 to 5 inches of mulched leaves. Come spring it will be ready for seed or sod. 4 – 6 inches of mulched leaves also work well as a pathway material and for frost protection in gardens. When preparing the garden for the next crop, just turn (or till) the pathway into the soil. Need some good organic material in the annual color bed or extra mulch in a flower bed? You guessed it, mulched leaves.

If you have 2 red oaks in the front yard and two Chinese Pistache in the back yard then you will have lots of leaves in lots of bags. But if you try reusing the fallen leaves, then maybe you will have 6 bags instead of 10.