Winter Grass In Lawns
Winter grass is a highly common weed in most lawns throughout Australia, it has a bright green leaf which is very soft in it’s early life cycle, it will most commonly appear at the beginning of Winter and can often last right up until the new year. It’s bright green leaf makes the grass very apparent as a weed in home lawns, and it never mows very well, neither with a rotary or cylinder lawn mower.
The weed can become a real problem over time as the many generations of weeds create more and more roots systems which will keep filling the soil like spiders webs. The root systems are very intensive and will eventually fill the sol to choke out the root system of the lawn itself.
How To Kill Winter Grass
The herbicide for Winter Grass is unique amongst most other herbicides, this one acts on the roots system of Winter Grass rather than on the leaf system like other poisons.
Winter Grass poison will be bought in a concentrated form in a small bottle, usually for less than $20.00. This is then mixed up with water in a spray bottle and then sprayed onto the lawn as per manufacturers instructions. Because this herbicide works on the roots system, it must be watered into the lawn after application, so this must be done now.
One of the most important factors in controlling Winter Grass is to treat it as early as possible in it’s lifecycle. The more Winter Grass matures, the more difficult it is to kill, and can often resist weed sprays. The other reason to treat this weed early is to kill it off before it has a chance to produce a new generation of weed seeds, which will only create more Winter Grass in the years to come.
Expect to treat Winter Grass for a few years running as the seed banks will take some time to deplete their stocks in the soil.
Pre-Emergent Control Of Winter Grass
Winter grass needs to be treated as early in it’s life cycle as possible, in fact the best time to treat Winter Grass is before it is even seen. This is when the Winter Grass seeds have germinated in the soil but have yet to be emerge into the lawns surface.
This may seem like a tricky act but it really is very easy. If we’ve had Winter Grass in our lawns in previous years then we will most certainly have it this year. So if Winter Grass is expected, we simply apply the Winter Grass Poison in May, knowing that the weed has already germinated within the soil.