Winter Weeds

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	Winter Weeds Skip's tips for ridding your yard of a growing problem.

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Transcript: Winter Weeds

Have you noticed in your yard, the cool season weeds are taking over? You know, in late winter, they can really become a problem. Our turf grass is still asleep, but the moderate temperatures we're having are making weeds take off like wildfire.

Now, a lot of people, when they start noticing the problem, want to spray. But the by the time we reach this part of the year, our weeds are going into a reproductive stage; they're starting to flower and set seed. Sprays are not going to be as effective. In fact, most of these cool season weeds, like henbit or chickweeds or perhaps ryegrass that's taking off in your lawn, are just a little too far along to spray.

First of all, start off with good, strong, healthy plants. Avoid ones with a lot of spots on the leaves or wilting of the leaves. You want to plant African Violets using a special African violet mix. These are very porous and, while they hold some moisture, they also drain well. One of the principle problems with African Violets is soggy soil conditions that promote root and crown rots.

The best thing to do is mow them and collect those clippings and put them in a compost pile because they'll really heat up a compost pile well. That will kill the weeds seeds rather then leaving the weed seeds back on the lawn.

Now, if you've got some perennial weeds problems, you can spray them with a contact-type product such as glyphosate, or -- if they're not too many -- just hand pull them and get them out of the lawn. That's the best way to deal with a perennial problem. If you use a product like glyphosate, be sure to just get it on the weeds because it will kill whatever you spray it on.

And as a final resort, many of our weeds are eatable, such as this chickweed. So if you can't beat them, eat them.

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Last Updated: July 6, 2006