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Central Florida Lawn Weed

6 years ago

Please tell me what this lawn weed is and the best herbicide to get rid of it. I have been fighting it for the past 2 years since we moved here. It lays close to the ground, continues to grow in all directions from the center and is a real pest. Thanks.



Comments (12)

  • 6 years ago

    Please could you try again? Put something in the picture to show the scale and get the plant in focus. We can't see enough detail to id it.

  • 6 years ago

    Also what is your turfgrass. Different herbicides are used for bermuda, centipede, and St Augustine.

  • 6 years ago

    To: floral-uk - I only have a fixed focus digital camera and can't get very close to the weed. But I will try again and get back with some new photos, hopefully clearer ones.


    To: dchall_san_antonio - We bought this property 2 years ago and inherited a lawn with 3 different grasses:


    Bahia, Bermuda and Zoysia


    I have used Ortho Liquid Nutsedge Killer for nut grass (3 separate doses with hose) and Sta-Green Weed & Feed (1 spreading, a Lowe's product) with good success. Neither have had any negative effect on the grass but neither have killed this weed. Any suggestion for a herbicide which will kill virtually any and all weeds? Thanks.

  • 6 years ago

    It looks like a Richardia.

  • 6 years ago

    one trick for pix .. is to put a lighter.. or pen cap or something next to it..


    not only does it provide a scale.. it gives the camera something to focus on ...


    ken

  • 6 years ago

    Paint some RoundUp on the leaves. If you spray RoundUp, it will kill the surrounding grass.

  • 6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    Surrounding grass of which barely any is visible in these two shots - poor conditions for a solid turf to develop do a lot to foster the admission of broadleaf weeds into the lawn area. New weeds will continue to come in as long as you do not identify and change why at least the two examples of your lawn you have shown here consist primarily of bare soil.

  • 6 years ago

    As I originally stated in my first post, I have only lived here for the past 2 years. The lawn was in rough shape and completely overrun with weeds when I moved in. Last summer I used a tiller on about 30-40% of my lawn. And as a result, it kicked up all the weed seeds underneath. I then planted common bermuda grass based on a seed company's recommendation. The results were rather mediocre and with daily waterings gave life to nutsedge grass. A neighbor who has lived here for a while told me that bermuda grass doesn't grow very well here as I found out myself, in spite of the fact that the pH of the soil is in the correct range. I will be replanting Pensacola Bahia as soon as the soil temperature is 65 degrees or above at night. The bare area where I took the photos receives much runoff rain from the carport roof and not very much sunlight. That was one of the areas I tilled. Consequently, not much has grown there yet. Trying to treat each individual weed with Roundup really won't solve anything. Plus, Roundup is a known carcinogen and I'm somewhat shocked that it hasn't been taken off the market yet with almost 20,000 lawsuits pending against Monsanto and Bayer. I will research the weed Richardia and see what chemical may kill it or at least control it. I have literally pulled up several "hundreds" of these repulsive weeds in the past 2 years.

  • 6 years ago

    You asked for the best herbicide to kill it. THen you refined the question by asking, "Any suggestion for a herbicide which will kill virtually any and all weeds?" That would be RoundUp. If you had restrictions on the acceptability of an answer, you should note that in the original post. What are some other restrictions you have not mentioned?

    You're not going to find a spray weed killer that is not a carcinogen. Painting it onto the leaves is the least impact to the soil of all the application methods.

    Bermuda should grow outstanding in your area as long at it receives 5 hours of unfiltered sunlight.

    Rototilling before planting grass is a mistake. In my opinion, rototilling is a mistake anywhere, but we're talking lawns here.

  • 6 years ago

    Maybe bermuda will grow in San Antonio but not in my soil or in this neighborhood, based on my experience and my neighbor's two doors away.

  • 6 years ago

    The reason we ask where people live is to tailor advice to THEM, not relive our experience. I've been learning and helping people here and elsewhere for 18 years. I've seen a lot of Central Florida questions and have tried to learn from them and the solutions that seemed to have worked. History would show that bermuda grows exceedingly well south of Cleveland. If you cannot grow it in the Florida heat, something is wrong.

    Judge? Can I treat this person as a hostile client?

    If you have trouble growing bermuda, then the best thing to do is get a soil test. It would be important to know what before trying to improve the lawn further beyond the herbicide.

    The best soil test in the country is the $25 test from Logan Labs in Ohio. You can get a soil test from a local extension agent or university, but the quality and reliability of that test will be far short of the Logan Labs test - just sayin' because I know you're not going to Logan Labs on my recommendation. Logan Labs and UMASS won the soil test olympics several years ago from another lawn forum. It was a multi year test project with samples sent in from all over. Results were compared to each other, to the same soil samples, and year for year. Only the two labs were able to get the right answer several times. Whatever test you get, if you get one, open up a new topic here with the subject of Soil Test Results, and you will get plenty of excellent advice from people who are not me. In fact, just search this forum for soil test results postings for a sample of what you might expect. Morpheuspa will tell you what to use, how much, when, where to buy it, and why. That's $200 worth of advice if you had to pay for it.

  • 6 years ago

    Looks in the original post photos like it's yet another Florida location where the soil is about as sandy as at a coastal beach.