Quick Pro-Tips:

• Pre-Emergent Herbicides are used in the early Spring Season to prevent weed seeds from germinating
• Post-Emergent Herbicide is used once the Spring Season has begun to target established weeds
• Application timing is important in the success of weed control
• More mature weeds will need more attention – Like manual pulling

Overview:

Nobody likes weeds.  They are hard on the eyes and usually end up killing the lawn by sucking up all the nutrients from the surrounding grass and eventually dying themselves making the lawn patchy and bumpy.  In order to prevent weeds from growing there are two types of product commonly used called Pre-Emergent and Post-Emergent Herbicides. It is ideal to understand the difference between the two to get the best results for your effort.  

Note: There is NO SUCH THING AS ORGANIC weed control!

Pre-Emergent Herbicides:

These products are typically meant to be applied in the early Spring season. The “Pre” in Pre-emergent is its focus on stopping weed seeds (or any seeds, grass included) from germinating. Typically that means from February to May depending on where you live or when the soil temps are getting up to 55 degrees. Based on where you are in the country and particular years climate this can change slightly.

Check your soil temps HERE

Post-Emergent Herbicides:

Post Emergent products are meant to address established weeds such as dandelions, thistle, bindweed, nutsedge and many more to kill them. The products can be applied with spot treatment for small problems, with a hose end sprayer for great leaf coverage, and as a granular product for a slower release and control. Be careful as application rates should be limited throughout the year. You can’t always get them all at once! Hence the manual process below…

Manual Weed Pulling:

Because you should really limit your weed control applications in a given year, as to not stress the good grass you want to keep. The best thing a homeowner can do is hand pull weeds or use a de-weeding tool to help in that process. You can get a mixture of seed and soil to back-fill any holes you create in the process to make sure no weeds just fill that spot again.

Lastly: No matter how much you treat your lawn, weed control is about consistency and perseverance.  Because weed seeds can travel several different ways from distance sometimes very far away you can never truly stop weed prevention and intervention. Keeping a healthy full lawn fed to crowd out weeds is the best practice.