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Old 13-06-2012, 04:23 PM posted to alt.home.lawn.garden
Frank Frank is offline
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Default Eliminating coarse grasses

On Wednesday, June 13, 2012 10:05:35 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Jun 13, 8:19*am, Frank wrote:
On 6/13/2012 1:21 AM, Dr Mike Oxgreen wrote:





'mike[_8_ Wrote:
;961511']I've had some small success mixing detergent with roundup
and using a brush to paint it on individual blades of offending grass.
Hi mike...


Thanks for replying!


Unfortunately I've got large areas of grass that are dominated by
Yorkshire Fog; at a guess I'd say at least a quarter to a third of the
lawn, in large patches. So it won't be practical for me to be so
selective with the glyphosate. I think my choice is between nuking large
areas and reseeding, or finding a long-term cultural regime that favours
the fine grass at the expense of the Fog.


Something I didn't mention in my opening post was that I did glyphosate
some of the very worst patches last year, where the Fog had formed
particularly dense tufts. I then reseeded with fine grass. So I now have
patches of very fine grass mixed in with the patches of very coarse
grass, which admittedly looks a bit daft but at least it's a step in the
right direction!


There are some new herbicides available. *Google them up. *They may just
hit the course grass and leave the good stuff alone.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


Being in the US, I don't know about Yorkshire Fog,
but undesirable grasses are a big problem and share
many of the same issues. The biggest one is that
for many of them, there is no selective herbicide.
I'd do what Frank suggested, ie google and see if
you can find one. The next issue is that many of
those are regulated, not sold to consumers, or if
they are they come in sizes and costs targeted for
commercial use.
The real problem here is that, well, it's a grass.
So, it's a lot harder to make a herbicide that will
kill the undesirable, but not the desirable grass.
If you can find one that will work and that you can
get, it's going to be your best solution.

The other unfortunate thing you're usually up against
is that the undesirable is a rough, tough grass, grows
fast, etc. Meaning in a war between it and the turf
grass, the undesirable is usually going to win.
Another factor is how that particular grass spreads.
If it's via rhizomes, even more trouble. In short,
I have not had much success in trying to deal with
it in any way other than killing it with herbicide.

In my experience, if there is a substantial infestation,
the best course is to kill it off and renovate. It's
not that hard. Essentially you kill it off with glyphosate
in very early Fall. Then when it's all dead, mow it
short, rake up debris. You could core aerate at this
point. Then rent an over-seeder, which is a gas
powered machine that cuts grooves in the soil and
drops the seed. Apply starter, keep it constantly
damp and in 2 months you'll have some decent
cover. It won't look real good though until Spring.

If you have just a few spots, you can do the kill
on just those, again, I'd do it in early Fall.


I had googled out of curiousity and did get hits indicating such stuff is available in the UK. Did not have the time to look at the details. I've been in a situation with Japanese Stilt Grass here and going through same type stuff. In this case, outside of Round-up the only thing that works are pre-emergents. Older crabgrass killers with arsenic would have worked but are now banned. There is a newer crab grass killer that also takes out about 200 undesireable grasses and weeds but a call to Ortho said not the stilt grass. This is another potential avenue for our UK inquirer, is to call the big herbecide producers and ask them about his problem.