johnnymysto

My yard is half bermuda, half crabgrass, and I'm afraid that the bermuda is slowly losing. How can I get rid of the crabgrass? Then, how can I stimulate the bermuda to take over where the crabgrass was?

clavus

Go to your local hardware store. There are all kinds of sprays and whatnot that you can buy. A word of advice - follow the directions.

I used a crabgrass-killer spray successfully a few times. I had a GREAT front lawn, and every once in while the crabgrass invaded and I'd beat it back. But one day I got sloppy about mixing the crabgrass-killing concentrate with water. I made it a bit too strong, and killed large areas of my formerly-perfect lawn along with the acursed crabgrass.

It looked like the Ho Chi Mihn Trail after a year of Agent Orange. It was deader than last year's bird-nest. Dead. Dead. Dead.

I'm still pissed off about that.

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Tirian

I know a guy who suggests the following.

1: Mow the lawn really short.
2: Water it so it starts growing good.
3: Once the crab grass has grown up faster than the lawn grass and is clearly taller... use a sock pulled over a hockey stick and dipped in roundup, and swipe it (walking backwards to avoid foot prints) on only the taller crab-grass.

He claims it works good.

apetaster

I used a Dragon brand post-emergent for a few years that contained a chemical branded 'Trimec' that did a good job in a garden sprayer. Last year I switched to a new Bayer (yes, the same Bayer that makes aspirin) post-emergent concentrate that works incredibly well. I have a tall fescue blend lawn and mixed it to be a bit stronger than recommended and sprayed it on trouble areas. It left the grass completely untouched, but within 3 days all the crabgrass was yellowing. I have had experiences clike Clavus' where a bad mix does bad things to the stuff you want to keep - but this Bayer Advanced 'lawn weed killer' was really user friendly.

bobw

hardware stores have products specifically for that purpose

Adog

Great idea Tirian.....! Sounds like it would work good.

briana

havn't trid the hockey stick method but sounds possible (and would probably give the neighbors something good to talk about also) this fall when the temps are cooler and the crabgrass stops growing, reseed heavily and rake in good (tear out as much crabgrass as possible) and get the new stuff started. It will make it through the winter and then in early spring put down pre-emergent. Even better they make a pre-emergent that won't harm new growth and you can reseed again the spots that didn't take in the fall. The first summer it won't be beautiful but it will by the next, just keep putting down the preemergent every spring

Me So Horny

When I was younger my dad used to have me pulling those son's o'bitches up by hand or with a screwderiver. It works best when the ground is damp. It actually works fairly well since a pretty significant clump of crabgrass comes up from one small root.

wondash

From what I've been told, there's no product that can kill crab grass and not the good grass. Although, from some of the posts above, I guess there are products. I use a pre-emergent in the spring. My lawn usually looks good until about midway through the summer. Then the crab grass starts to appear. By the end of the summer, parts of my lawn are covered with crab grass.

rooster

u got a big problem the root system is really thick.i would just live with it. it makes good hay though lol

Dibbler

That's funny... I bought a cheap fertilizer spreader one time along with some good quality fertilizer. Of course the bag didn't have the settings for my cheap spreader listed so I had to guess. I guessed really, really wrong! I had long stripes of dead grass where I overlapped the path. Another part of the yard I killed everything. I watered the hell out of it and hoped that the grass would come back but ended up with what look like a desert.

I was really pissed too. Took two years to get it back to looking good again...

yournamehere

Concentrate on your grass - Fertilize it, and make sure it gets enough water and sunlight.

Healthy bermuda should crowd out and out-compete the crabgrass for water and nutrients.

Bermuda is a hardy grass - but its Achilles heel is sunlight - it needs a lot, and doesn't do well in shade.

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babarr

My gf told me she got crabs from tanning nude on the lawn which had crabgrass. Is this possible? You realize I am joking. Hope you had a good laugh.