Tips for Controlling Weeds in Your Yard

Weeds are a problem in every yard. The best way to prevent weeds is to make sure you have a healthy lawn by:

• Planting grass that’s suitable for your climate and yard.
• Providing good topsoil with the right pH and nutrients.
• Making sure your lawn receives the correct amount of water.
• Mowing your lawn to the proper height for your type of grass.

The type of weeds you have can give clues as to what you need to do to improve your lawn. For example clover usually indicates low nitrogen levels in the soil, while dollar weed tends to grow in lawns that are too wet or have poor drainage.

When pulling weeds, try to get all the roots so the weeds can’t grow back. A broadleaf herbicide can also be used to kill weeds if applied carefully.

Watch this video to find out more.

Further Information

• How to Control Weeds in Your Lawn (article)
• How to Have a Weed Free Lawn (article)
• Lawn Weed Control (video)
• Tips for Dealing with Weeds (video)
• How to Control Crabgrass (article)
• How to Control Dollarweed (Pennywort) (article)
• How to Control Dandelions (article)

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Danny Lipford: Now, I’ll tell you my friend has some challenges here. He mowed everything and it looks pretty good, but there’s a heck of a lot more here than just grass.

Julie Day-Jones: That’s right. You know, weeds are going to come into every lawn no matter how hard you work on it. So it’s something that you can’t really eliminate, but there are certainly things you can do to manage them. A healthy lawn is your best defense against weeds. So if you’ve taken all the steps that we talked about, hopefully, weeds won’t be too much of a problem, but they will still occur.

In small numbers, your best bet is to dig or pull them by hand making sure you get all the roots. For larger patches, you can carefully apply a broadleaf herbicide that will kill weeds without hurting your grass. If your lawn is completely infested with weeds chances are there’s a larger problem with your soil. And knowing what kind of weeds you have can actually kind of help you fix it. For instance, clover is usually a sign of low nitrogen in the soil. While dollar weed usually pops up when there’s poor drainage or too much irrigation. By addressing those problems not only will your lawn be healthier, but those weeds just might take care of themselves.