On Jun 24, 11:10*am, gecko wrote:
I have been fighting a weed for a few years now, all to no avail. *It
is sometimes called 'wiregrass'. sometimes 'witchgrass', I think.
It grows long 'stringers' below and above ground, and when I pull one
up, sometimes the 'stringer' is a foot or two long! *Terrible stuff.

I have tried a few weed killers, such as Weed-B-Gone, and weed killers
in Turf Builder. *I think the danged weed feeds on that.

The local nursery tells me that you can't kill it except by using a
vegetation killer, which of course would kill grass and everything.
I hate to think of doing that.

I guess I have a few questions. *First, is a vegetation killer my only
choice? *If not, what else can I try? *If so, when do I apply it? *In
the Fall? *Second, how soon after something as drastic as that can I
then plant grass seed? *Seems to me that the killer would exist in the
soil for a while. *Maybe years?

Thanks
-GECKO

i generally don't do a lot of week or bug killers but i've got
similarly tough (but unrelated weeds) and get the same advice even
from folks at the Ag station; either live with it, or else kill the
lawn completely and start over.

i'm just going to live with it, but honestly, killing the lawn and
starting over doesn't seem that out of the question; roundup or
another glyphosate product is gone very quickly, and you can seed like
the next day. i've used the stuff seriously once where i hadn't gotten
to my "garden" in time to either plant something or mulch it, and had
a gorgeous crop of 4 foot tall weeds, and it killed most everything
off very quickly; but, month later, new weeds were indeed growing
there. so there is apparently no real residual activity.

some folks appear to be sensitive to it; but in fact that appears to
be sensitivity to the "inert carrier" whatever it may be, rather than
the glyphosate itself. me, i just like to avoid routine use of
chemicals and invest my cash/time/energy more in building self-
sustaining healthy lawn, etc. but for the occasional real emergency
cases like my localized bumper weed crop i'll use some products if my
research on them doesn't produce any real red flags.