5 Common Winter Weeds - And How To Kill Them!

Lawn, Turf

August 23, 2019

blogeditor

Have weeds been a problem in your lawn this winter?

As tempting as it may be to just turn a blind eye and hope they’ll disappear when spring arrives, they won’t.

If you don’t treat them now, they’ll go rogue and undo all the hard work you put into getting your lawn into top shape during the warmer months.

The best time to treat winter weeds in your lawn is during winter. By doing so, you’ll have more chance of killing them before germination, which will stop them from dropping their seeds back into the soil and returning with a vengeance next season.

During winter, your lawn growth isn’t as lush and thick as it is during the other seasons, therefore the weeds find it easier to penetrate. Naturally, prevention is better than cure so try to keep a bit of extra length on your lawn and ensure the ground doesn’t become compacted, particularly during and after periods of heavy rain.

And if you want to know what you can do to remove those pesky wild grasses from your turf, here’s our step-by-step guide of the most common winter weeds and how to tackle them.

Winter Grass

Winter Grass (Poa Annua) is a low growing turf grass with soft, drooping green leaves grown in tufts and triangular shaped seed heads. If you allow Winter Grass to drop its seeds, next winter it will be back, twice as nasty as the previous year.

How to remove Winter Grass from your lawn:

Winter Grass can be removed very easily by hand as it doesn’t have deep roots or runners, and grows in simple clumps. You can also use a combination of a pre-emergent like Oxafert and a selective Winter Grass control at the correct time of year (now!) to ensure Winter Grass is eradicated from your lawn. You could consider using Brek, or an Amgrow Winter Grass Killer is safe to use on buffalo lawns (including Sir Walter DNA Certified), couch and kikuyu varieties.

Broadleaf Weeds and Clover

Broad leaf winter weeds are the most prevalent in lawns at this time of year. Mainly because of their size – they just stand out more. Even though a healthy lawn with dense coverage will help minimise the impact of winter weed invasion, and hence reduce the amount of work to eradicate pesky weeds coming into spring, it is not uncommon that a broad leaf weed with larger foliage will be more obvious when your lawn is less active outside the traditional growing season of warm season grass varieties.

How to remove Broadleaf Weeds and Clover from your lawn:

The LSA All Purpose Weed Control is the perfect solution to control most common weeds. This product is a ready-to-use herbicide agent specifically developed for use on home lawns. A 1 x 2ltr pack will cover 200m². Use for the control of Bindii, Creeping Oxalis, Catsear, Clover, Cudweed, Dandelion and other annoying but common lawn weeds. Amgrow Chemspray Bin-Die is also suitable for use on most grasses including Sir Walter DNA Certified Buffalo Lawn, Nullarbor Couch Grass, Eureka Kikuyu, RTF Fescue, Platinum Zoysia and all other lawn types.

One contact & one systemic active to kill bindii, catsear, clover, creeping oxalis, cudweed, dandelion, plain thistle and other broad leaf weeds. You would need to mix this product up in a napsack and apply at label rates – but as a guide – a highly concentrated 250ml bottle will cover approx 400 sq metres.

Bindii

Bindii is possibly the most annoying weed - due mainly to the pain it causes to our bare feet! Bindii is a low growing summer active weed with a flower at its centre. At maturity, the flower produces a prickly seed pod which is a menace during the warmer months when we are trying to enjoy our lawns.

How to remove Bindii from your lawn:

Bindii can be managed by hand or by applying a selective broadleaf herbicide like Bin-Die or LSA All Purpose Weed Control. This will help to eradicate these weeds in all lawn types including kikuyu and couch and is safe to use on most varieties of buffalo except the ST varieties. A repeat application may be required. The best time to target Bindii is in winter before it produces the seed pod and spreads further throughout your lawn.

Creeping Oxalis

Creeping Oxalis has small light green heart shaped leaves, very similar in appearance to clover, except that it has oval shaped leaves. The flowers are about 3-4mm in diameter and bright yellow in colour containing five petals. Creeping Oxalis quickly runs along the surface of the soil and produces roots from the leaf as it goes. When seed pods mature they dry out and explode, causing the seed to spread.

How to remove creeping Oxalis from your lawn:

Once again, a selective herbicide such as LSA All Purpose Weed Control will help to eradicate these weeds in all lawn types including kikuyu and couch and are safe to use on most varieties of buffalo except the ST varieties. Coolabah Turf carries a wide range of weed and pest control products for buffalo and other lawn varieties. Remember to always follow manufacturer’s instructions on the pack.

Onion Weed

This one is a nightmare! And never, EVER attempt to remove Onion Grass by hand! If you pull on the top of the weed, the tiny bulbs in the soil detach & release resulting in the onion weed multiplying. It’s very time consuming to eradicate Onion Weed because you can’t spray it with a selective herbicide. It needs to be removed by spot weeding. So encouraging it to multiply is the last thing you want to do!

How to remove Onion Weed from your lawn:

If possible, dig the weed-clump out of the ground with a spade or trowel, and throw the entire clump away. The next step is to spot weed with a solution of Glyphosate & water in a small cup. Add a dash of dishwashing liquid which will help break down the waxy coating on the leaf of the plant & allow the poison to penetrate. Paint the solution carefully onto the weed using a small brush, being careful not to get it on the surrounding lawn where at all possible, as this is an non-selective herbicide that will kill everything!