Best Practices for Weeding Your Lawn

Posted Friday, March 5th, 2021 | 1,280 views

People all over Brantford work hard making their lawns lush and beautiful so we’ve put together some best practices for weeding your lawn. Throughout all of this sweat and elbow grease, you struggle against the most irritating and persistent invader in any lawn. Weeds can grow nearly anywhere in your yard where there are healthy nutrients and sunlight are plentiful.

Hiring a company to provide professional lawn care is always a good idea, but learning to utilize the most effective methods for weed control yourself is a smart course of action in ensuring that weeds are no longer a threat to your lawn.

Be Extremely Careful with Herbicides

There are many great chemical weed killers on the market, but using them on your lawn can be dangerous if you’re not careful and read the instructions. If applied incorrectly, herbicides can kill the grass just as easily as it kills the weeds.

Thoroughly research the products that you’re considering to buy, and follow the instructions on the label exactly in order to prevent any damage and soil pollution.

Pull Weeds Up Early

The smaller a weed is, the easier it is to extract their roots when pulling them out. The problem here is that weeds grow incredibly quickly. It’s difficult to catch them when they’re small. The best way to approach this issue is by doing a quick sweep of your lawn for budding weeds every couple of days.

Once you spot a budding weed, pull it out immediately. Not only will this practice help prevent weed growth in your yard, but it will also save you a lot of backbreaking work, time and frustration that would have been spent on stubborn fully grown weeds.

Remove Weeds When the Soil is Moist

Right after a rain shower or after the lawn has been freshly watered is the best time to pull weeds. Dry soil is hard and tough, making the process of extracting weeds very difficult.

Wet soil is soft and pliable, making it much easier to yank weeds out of the soil fully intact.

Always Ensure the Roots are Removed

Dug up weedsOne of the biggest mistakes people make while weeding their lawns is leaving the roots behind. Weeds are extremely resilient. Simply snapping the flowers off does not kill them.

The roots left behind will quickly recover and regrow the weed almost as quickly as it emerged the first time. You need to either pull the roots out by the stem or dig the roots out with a tool in order to be rid of the weed entirely.

Grab the weed by the base of the plant and twist as you pull the weed straight up out of the ground. Grabbing the weed by the base and twisting it will help prevent the stem from breaking. Using a straight upward angle will make it easier to extract the roots from the soil. Don’t weed for longer than an hour at a time.

Don’t Dig Too Deep

Weed seeds are everywhere, but most of them are buried so deeply in the soil that they can’t get the proper nutrients or sunlight needed to grow. When people dig up weeds, they sometimes dig too deeply and uncover hidden weed seeds, bringing them to the surface and allowing them to blossom.

To avoid this issue, pull weeds out by the stem whenever possible. If digging is necessary, only dig less than an inch down. If you still can’t get the roots out, try killing them by dousing them in boiling hot water or sprinkling salt at the base of the plant.

Mow Regularly and Regulate the Height of the Blades

Mowing regularly continuously lops off the heads of any weeds in your lawn. While this doesn’t kill the plant, it will prevent it from seeding and causing even more weeds to sprout over your lawn.

Keeping your grass at around three inches is the optimal height to help prevent weed growth. This provides plenty of shade over the soil in the area to prevent weed seeds from getting sunlight.

Mow the grass only when the length nears five inches. Mowing too frequently will weaken the grass, but mowing too infrequently will promote weed growth.

Dispose of Weeds Properly to Avoid Regrowth

Garden thistleMany people make the mistake of throwing weeds off to the side when they’re pulled. It’s understandable that this practice became so common because weeds are natural plants and eventually decompose, but disposing of weeds this way causes more problems than it fixes.

The seeds left behind in the pulled weeds will eventually make their way back into the soil and sprout into many more weeds. To prevent this, throw plucked weeds into a bucket and dispose of them in a compost heap or a wooded area.

Spare Yourself Pain with Good Techniques

Pulling weeds is tough and can wreak havoc on your back, knees and neck if you are not careful. Make sure to wear gardening gloves with thick rubber pads on the fingers to help establish a strong grip on the plant. Squat or kneel properly to pull weeds.

Don’t bend over. If you choose to kneel, use knee pads with soft cushioning. Take breaks, stretch out and walk around for a while to give your muscles a rest.

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