For your Lawn Care Indianapolis, it is important to understand what you are putting on your lawn and what it does. We all want a beautiful lawn that is weed free. We need to be careful, however, when using herbicides.
Many lawn weeds are broad leaf weeds. The herbicide 2,4,D, sold under many brand names, will do a good job of killing them. It is the active ingredient in most weed and feed type products as well as most turf builder products.
There is a catch, however, to this happy picture. Saint Augustine grass is a broad leaf plant. If you put 2,4,D on it, you will kill it deader than a door nail. It happens every year. Someone spreads weed and feed on their lawn, then calls a week or two later complaining that the lawn is yellow. Dead as a doornail, have to re-sod. Don’t let this be you.
Now, if you have Bermuda for your Indianapolis Lawn Care, you are free to use 2,4,D. A caution with Bermuda, and other grasses, is that some people use RoundUp™ to kill weeds before their grass begins growing for the season. This works because the chemical must be absorbed into the leaves of the plant, then sent to the roots along with the fruits of photosynthesis. If the plant is not sending food down to the roots, the chemical doesn’t do anything.
Timing is a bit touchy with this process, though. The weeds have to be sending food to the roots, but the grass cannot be doing so. Mis-time things, and your grass dies. Be very careful when using this method of weed control.
Pre-emergents are easier to use and safer. You put them down, usually in granular form, and then water them in. They form a chemical barrier. When a seed tries to grow through that barrier to the surface, it cannot. The seed then essentially starves to death because it cannot reach the light. Established plants such as sod are already through the barrier, so it does not cause them a problem.
Herbicides are not evil. They make our plentiful food supply possible and make our lives much easier. However, we need to understand how they work and how to use them safely for effective Lawn Care Indianapolis.
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