Weeds weeds weeds!

circadian

Hi all,

I'm hopeful by I can get some sage advice from some folks here. I bought my house about 2 years ago as a fixer upper and the time has finally come to deal with the garden.

My back lawn is covered with every type of common perennial weed. There is some grass there but it's mostly weeds and moss. It's south facing and medium to large in size so it's a significant area that needs to be dealt with.

I've tried a few courses of lawn feed/weed killer with minor success but I'm at a loss as to what to do about it.

Thanks in advance.

Roen

What size is it? If it's small you could be better off pulling by hand, filling the holes and reseeding.

Dicophar in a knapsack sprayer is a good selective killer for a bigger site. Although after dosing with other weed/feed products you might be in danger of stressing the grass a bit much.

Mobacter is good for killing moss, but again for a big site iron sulphate in granule or dissolved in water and watered in or sprayed is WAY more economical. It will blacken the moss and it will need to be raked out, something you won't have to do with Mobacter.

circadian

Yeah it's a decent size about 45ft by 15ft.

Would you recommend some topsoil as seeding after treatment?

Roen

Bear in mind I'm no expert but I am in the middle of renovating the lawn myself.

What I've done is dosed with dicophar. I'm now waiting 6 weeks before scarifying. The weeds are dying back nicely. Some more than others I will admit. The plantain don't seem to be that phased by the treatment.

After scarifying I'm spreading lime and over seeding with grass. Once the seed is down I'll put a light dusting of soil over to cover the seed and water in.

For your area I'd be tempted to go at it by hand. But as you say if it's predominantly weeds you may not be prepared to do it.
Whatever you do you'll definitely need a bit of grass seed though. Bare soil where the weeds die back won't stay bare for long! Weeds will reappear sharpish.
Get some seed down, lightly cover with soil and water in.

The good news is that you're at the right time of year to be going at it. Late August/early September is ideal to be getting seed in. The weeds will be coming to the end of their growing season and the grass can push on without competition.
Consider firing down an autumn/winter fertiliser too. The lawn should be a1 in spring. Hopefully.

Wheety

I'd say use some of this in a knapsack sprayer and just start again

magicbastarder

if there's a significant amount of moss, you may find that you need to address other issues than just the weeds. how well drained or how compacted is the soil?

circadian

Thanks for all the advice. I checked the drainage over the weekend and it's not too bad, it's definitely a clay soil though. I also done some raking up of the old moss and weeds. There's no grass to speak of!

In light of this I've decided to remove the top layer, turn it and order roll out lawn. This thread has given me plenty of pointers on how to deal with weeds at the start of the growing season and when they start to show up so all the advice is greatly appreciated.

The reason the lawn is in this condition is because of neglect, 2 years on my part and several more by the previous owners.