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Old 12-06-2012, 11:45 PM posted to alt.home.lawn.garden
mike[_8_] mike[_8_] is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Feb 2012
Posts: 5
Default Eliminating coarse grasses

On 6/12/2012 3:59 AM, Dr Mike Oxgreen wrote:
I have a lawn of about 300 square metres, which is in reasonable health
except that large areas of it are dominated by really coarse, ugly weed
grasses. I'm 90% sure that the worst offender is "Yorkshire Fog" as it's
known in the UK - a Holcus species.

I'd like to know what lawncare regime I should be following to make life
as difficult as possible for the coarse grasses and encourage the finer
ones - with a view to shifting the balance of power and gradually ending
up with a nicer lawn. None of the books I've found go into much detail
about this.

The only thing I've read consistently about Yorkshire Fog is that it
doesn't like being over-grazed - and therefore I've decided to mimic
this by mowing as frequently as I can during this summer: every third
day if possible, mowing at a moderate height (not too short). Will this
work?

Some time in September I plan to spend a weekend scarifying, aerating
and then overseeding with fine grasses. I did this last year in the
spring, but I think I understand now that autumn is better. I also think
I could scarify a bit more aggressively.

So... do you think this regime will have a significant impact on
shifting the balance in favour of the finer grasses?

I don't think I feel brave enough to glyphosate the whole lot and seed
it from scratch. Or is that what I should do?




I've had some small success mixing detergent with roundup
and using a brush to paint it on individual blades of offending grass.
One horror story, tho...
I did this on a species that propagates by sending underground shoots
to the next patch. I painted on the roundup. Some days later, I
had a yard that looked like a roadmap. The dead patches of grass
were connected by brown patches that followed the shoots between patches.