Can You Still Buy Lawn Weed Control Without Fertilizer?
 

Here in zone four the lawn fertilizer (in the winterizer) that I applied last fall is still in the ground and working well. Now, as the creeping charlie starts to bloom, I need to apply lawn weed control. There is only a ten day window of opportunity to knock it back (while it's in bloom); but its way too early to apply more fertilizer. So where can I get lawn weed killer without the fertilizer? I used to buy it at the garden center but they don't have it anymore, just the combination stuff.

I'm trying to follow the concept of "low input lawn care" ie: Mow high, Mow often, fertilize only four times a year and apply weed killer only when effective in the spring and fall (not every application). I don't want to follow the reccomendations of the chemical companies because it's all just marketing and way too much product on the lawn.

And no I don't want to let the weeds take over.

Thanks

Go to any farm store and get the weed control before it is added to fertilizer. You can get anything from roundup to 2-4 D. Read the labels and find the right thing to kill what you want.

It's still out there but hard to find. you can usually find the liquid although it is usually more expensive.

Very easy to find in almost any store that sells garden or lawn supplies. However it will be in liquid form. To a certain extent you can target certain weeds or rather types of weeds such as grassy sandburs, broadleaf weeds, nutsedge, etc. Much better choice and cheaper better weed control than with granular fertilizers with weed control added in.

Target the weeds w/10% vinegar spray. Best when its sunny & no wind. Doesn't get into the ground water like round up & become carcinogenic.

I don't think most would use a non selective control such as Roundup on a lawn. You would have no lawn if used over a broad general area.

Go to your trusty Ace and get some Ortho Weed B Gone (it's a liquid) and a hose end sprayer.

Rip up the lawn, plant a garden.

If I were ruler of the world, lawn's would be outlawed. Or taxed into non-existence.

One of my major dislikes centers around the fact that people insist on having 'perfect' lawns, and use all sorts of lovely yet toxic poisons to reach that perfect state. I find it hard to believe that people will let the poisoned grass come into contact with their skin.

Sorry, totally non-helpful post.

But lawns do serve a purpose. They are a cool oasis from the hot summer sun as the transpiration helps to cool the immediate area.

Besides without lawns where would we play croquet or those dangerous lawn darts?

Without a lawn where would you set your lawn chair while you sit and shell peas, snap beans, etc.?

I can't believe anyone would spray weeds in bloom.
Pollinators- including HONEYBEES, visit these flowers and bring it back to the hive.
Please consider any beekeepers, orchards and farms within 3-5 miles of your lawn.

The only thing effective against creeping Charlie has to have Trimec in it. Nothing else works without eliminating everything else. Used to be able to buy straight Trimec but it was expensive and few places carried it. Haven't seen it for a few years here.

Martin

I really developed an active dislike of Atrazine when I was in Florida. Roundup and 2-4D have their uses, but atrazine is a nasty nasty little chemical (and I'm not a big fan of ecologists, so you know I'm not coming from that viewpoint.)

If you must have a weed free lawn, use a service. They know how to apply the minimum of chemicals to get the desired results. I'm not quite on the same wavelength as texican, but I totally understand where he is coming from.

Might be cool up in Kansas, where you probably have low humidity...

In the hot summer sun down here, it's like sitting in a rotisserie oven... the heat is bad enough, but the steam (105% humidity :cool:) is intolerable. I've shelled way more than my fair share of peas in the past... if I remember correctly, it was almost always done inside, sitting as close to the swamp cooler as possible... to cool down the sweat soaked clothes used while picking satan's little peas.... {I dislike black eyed peas till this day... I remember my days as a pea picking slave...:eek:}

If it's too hot for lawns, it's even moreso for vegetable gardens.

Martin

Sorry for the thread resurrection
 

But I cant seem to find granular weed control without fertilizer either. I don't have a sprayer.

I don't have the time to mow weekly so have never fertilized. Now after 10 years, I have more broad leaf than grass.

Should I hire someone to kill my entire lawn and start over with nomow seed? Or just get over it?

Buy a jug of 2,4D and borrow a sprayer. Dilute per instructions. Do it when the weeds are growing. Then don't mow for a week.

Round-Up doesn't do either of those things

It rapidly breaks down once it contacts the soil, and is not a proven carcinogen, even before breaking down

http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles...osate-ext.html

I have never dealt with Creeping Charlie, but I think it can be sprayed in the spring and fall. http://www.theiowagardener.com/Creeping_charlie.html

I think it is important to learn about all pesticides, natural and man made. Salt is a common herbicide. But entire nations have been lost to the effects of salt on crop lands. Just how does vinegar kill weeds and what does it do to the soil? I believe vinegar is a powerful acid. Plus it is non-selective, killing all plants.

Those that refuse to control weeds create breeding grounds that spread seeds to the land of others, requiring them to use more chemicals.

Well that's me. I imagine my neighbors love me and my lawn.

It was more of a attempt to reduce mowing because I didn't want fertilizer.

They sure make sprays that you use on a hose. For lawns in the northern areas 8,000 Sq Ft. Southern lawns up to 16,000 Sq Ft. This is Spectracide

http://cdn.spectrumbrands.com/~/medi...hx?h=275&w=240

If you have a farmer friend, get him to pick you up some herbicide for you. The stuff they sell "for lawns" and to non farmers, is so stinking expensive, often diluted to the point of non-effectiveness, and they simply have such a limited array of different families and herbicide groups and choices.

Lots of the rangeland herbicides work excellent on lawns, and a jug will last a homeowner YEARS and YEARS, and will not cost nearly so much as the garden store junk.

Grasses crowd out broadleaves -if- your soil is set up healthy for grasses.

You need a good ph (lime to get up to 6.5ph or so, tough luck if you have naturally high ph over 7....) and good nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium levels.

Then mow the grasses regularly (30 days or less between mowings) and that favors grasses, and stresses broadleaves.

If you are unwilling to fertilize, or lime if needed, your problem will always be there.... You don't, shouldn't, fertilize to excess, but just to levels to make a healthy grass crop.

To get the weeds under control, there are many weed controls out there that kill broadleaves and don't harm grasses. Most of them are brand names of the same old farm chemicals we use on corn crops for generations now. 24D, dicamba, and others.

For creeping Charlie, look on the label of active ingredients 'dicamba' is the one that kills them. It is in Trimec, and the part that is most effective on creeping C, as well as on many broadleaf weeds.

I would rescue your current lawn with lime if needed, fertilizer to a low but needed level, and broadleaf spray to knock back the broadleaves.

In that order.

Your lawn should recover much faster than killing it off and trying to start with fresh dirt, I would not do that.

Paul

Yes the one I pictured has 8% 2-4-D as the first ingredient. And with the easy of connecting to a hose and spraying it out for an average lean it works great. Took care of all sorts of weeds in my lawn and a friends lawn when he found out about the product and used it also.