How To Combat Winter Weeds

Winter weeds can be a real nuisance and undo all the hard work you put into getting your lawn looking superb during the warmer months.

The best time to treat winter weeds in your lawn is during winter. By doing so you have a better chance of getting them before germination. This will stop them from dropping their seeds back into the soil and coming back again next season.

Here are some of the most common weeds that appear during winter and what you can do to remove them from your lawn.

Winter grass (Poa Annua) is a low growing turfgrass. It has soft drooping green leaves grown in leaves with triangular-shaped seed heads. If you allow winter grass to drop seed it will be back, twice as fierce it was the previous year.

Winter grass can be removed very easily by hand and it does not have a particularly deep root and it does not have any runners growing in simple clumps.

Using a combination of pre-emergent like Oxafert and a selective winter grass control like Wintergrass killer at the correct time of year should ensure winter grass is eradicated from your lawn. Amgrow winter weed killer is safe to use on buffalo lawns (Including Sir Walter DNA Certified), blue and common couches. However, the Amgrow winter grass killer should be avoided on Eureka Kikuyu and red fescue lawns. If you do happen to have a Kikuyu lawn an alternative post-emergent herbicide is Munns professional winter grass killer.

Bindii is possibly the most annoying weed due to the pain it causes to our bare feet!! It is a low growing weed with a flower at its centre. At maturity, the flower produces a prickly seed pod. This seed pod is a particular menace during the warmer months when we are trying to enjoy our lawns. Bindii can be managed by hand or by applying a selective broadleaf herbicide like BinDie or Lawn Solutions Australia All-Purpose weed control.

This will help eradicate these weeds in all lawn types including Kikuyu and couch. It is safe to use on most varieties of buffalo except 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 throughout your lawn.

Clover is another common winter weed. It is one of those legume plants like beans, lucerne, or alfalfa that draws nitrogen from the air and stores it in its roots. As the roots die back, the nitrogen is replenished into the soil but where there is sufficient nitrogen in your soil to keep your lawn healthy, the clover struggles to survive. In most cases when you see clover growing in your lawn it means there is not enough nitrogen to slow the clover down.

Clover can also be managed by applying a selective broadleaf herbicide like Bin-Die or All Purpose weed control.

Creeping Oxalis has small light green heart-shaped leaves, very similar in appearance to clover. (Oxalis have heart-shaped leaves while clover has oval-shaped leaves). The flowers are small about 3-4mm in diameter and bright yellow in colour containing 5 petals.

Creeping Oxalis as its name suggests quickly runs along the surface of the soil and produces roots from the leaf as it grows. When seed pods mature they dry out and explode, causing the seed to spread.

Once again the selective herbicide such as 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 St Varieties.