Thank you!!

I can't tell from the pictures if I have Nutsedge or not. I will wait
until I get a seedhead and take it to my nursery.

"John Crichton" wrote in message
news:2iOUe.321937$x96.167420@attbi_s72...
G Burton wrote:

I have some relatively ugly grass mixed with my dwarf fescue. The
ugly grass isn't crabgrass, because it just laughs at crabgrass killer.
Blades get fairly wide -- 1/4 to 3/8 inches, and it grows in haphazard
directions. It grows fairly tall. I wish I could identify it, but I'm
not that knowledgeable.

I have been sparying it with Roundup, then planting new seed.
However, my wife is yelling at me for doing that because the brown dying
grass is uglier than the green, ugly grass. Besides, it seems to be a
never-ending project because as I kill off the worst of the bad grass, I
get more and more particular about what "good" grass should look like.

I have 2 questions::
1) What if I stop using Roundup and just overseed the "bad" areas
like crazy with new dwarf fescue, and mow at about 2 and 1/2 inches. I
am thinking the thick Fescue would eventually choke out the ugly grass --
especially if I mow a little shorter, which the Fescue would tollerate
better than the ugly grass, which is taller. That way, I wouldn't have
to work so hard, and my wife would yell at me less. Would it work?

2) Although my description of the ugly grass is kind of sketchy,
can anyone take a stab at identifying it? Perhaps there is a selective
poison for it.

Gary Burton

It sounds like nutsedge (also called nutgrass). If the blades look
something like monkey grass (mondo grass) but somewhat smaller and usually
come up in three blade shoots in mid-summer then it is probably nutsedge.
Nutsedge will normally grow significantly faster than any fescue so that
halfway between your normal mowing interval you have perhaps 4 to 6 inch
blades towing over your slower growing fescue. There is a product called
Manage that does an excellent job of controlling this weed grass. Mix per
directions and wait until about 4 days after you mow (long enough to give
the nutsedge time to grow much taller than your fescue). Use a pump up
sprayer and add a "sticker" (a type of detergent that breaks the surface
tension of the water and makes it coat the leaves more effectively). I
normally use a table spoon of High Yield Sticker (High Yield is a brand)
in a gallon of water with a 1 gallon packet of Manage. Coat the nutsedge
leave throughly but do not drench the dwarf fescue around it too much. If
you get a lot of Manage on your fescue it will brown it out (but it will
normally come back).

Good luck

BTW, here are some pictures of various kinds of nutsedge:

http://weeds.ippc.orst.edu/pnw/weeds...lentus--s.html

http://www.oisat.org/pests/weeds/sedges/nutsedge.html

http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/cropprot/weedguid/purplent.htm

http://weeds.ippc.orst.edu/pnw/weeds...tundus--m.html