Walking barefoot on a lawn of lush grass is one of the best parts of summer. But if your lawn is full of weeds, it’s not quite the same pleasant experience. Unfortunately, weeds seem to respond to water and sunshine just as fast, if not quicker than grass. A Quad Cities lawn can change from grass to mostly dandelions pretty fast.
There’s no denying it, fixing a lawn full of weeds will take some work. But the reassuring thing is that once you’ve done the hard work to get your lawn back to lush, soft, and beautiful, you can keep it that way with a little dedicated maintenance every year.
Here are a few tips for tackling a lawn full of weeds.
1. Identify the weeds that are in your lawn. If you’re not sure what they are, take some closeup in-focus pictures of the leaves and flowers or seedheads and swing by the garden center. Our landscaping experts can help you figure out what weeds you are dealing with.
2. Choose your weed solution. If you only have a few weeds and they haven’t gone to seed, digging them out by hand may be a good option. If your lawn seems to be more weeds than grass, you’ll probably need to use herbicides. Pre-emergent herbicides are best for tackling the problem in the spring when plants are just starting to develop. If the weeds are already well established, you’ll need to use a post-emergent herbicide. Our landscaping team can help you figure out which solutions will work best for your yard.
3. Apply your weed killers, get digging, or both. Read the directions very carefully on the product you choose, and apply it as accurately as possible. You may need to do follow up applications to make sure you catch everything.
4. Keep up with lawn maintenance. The best way to keep weeds out of your lawn is to develop a good lawn maintenance program to keep your lawn healthy and thriving. A good lawn maintenance program includes things like efficient watering, fertilizing, over-seeding, aeration, and regular mowing.
5. Consider different lawn options. We don’t mean dig up your lawn and replace it with astroturf, although that is an option.
- If your grass is really struggling to compete with weeds, even with proper maintenance, it may be as simple as starting to overseed with a variety that’s more appropriate to our climate in Moline.
- Seed mixes that integrate non-grass alternatives (such as clover) are available. They are usually tougher than regular grass, easy to grow, and require less maintenance.
- If the weeds are really out of control, you may want to consider a complete lawn makeover, taking all of it up and laying new sod or seeding new grass.
- If you’re tired of lawn maintenance, you may want to consider xeriscaping, which creates a landscape of native, drought-tolerant, low maintenance plants. You can also integrate other beautiful landscape features like gravel, boulders, mulch, and different hardscaping to replace the lawn completely.
Whatever your lawn and weed dilemmas are, our landscaping experts can help you find a solution to suit your preferences and the time you have to dedicate to lawn maintenance.
