The best tip for removing weeds or grubs in your lawn is prevention rather than cure. Avoiding the need to use weed killer or grub killer is not only environmentally friendly but will aslo save you money.
Although difficult to control completely, lawn weeds and grubs can be kept to a minimum with a little extra work. Following good lawn care practices is the best way to produce a healthy lawn, which will provide the best protection against weeds and minimize the need to use weed and grub killer.
Herbicides should be considered a supplement, not a stand-alone weed control practice. When weed killer alone is used, the symptoms – not the cause – of a weedy lawn are being treated.
Here you will find some tips for preventing weeds in your lawn:
- Maintain a dense, vigorous lawn
- Aerate the soil to help it breathe
- Water deeply and infrequently. Light, frequent irrigation encourages shallow rooting.
- Patch bare areas as soon as they appear to prevent weed invasion.
- Use mechanical control methods such as digging and pulling when dealing with a small number of weeds. Hand pull or dig new or exotic weeds to prevent their spread.
Mowing is another method of mechanical weed control. Follow recommended mowing guidelines for the various types of grasses. When mowing, here are some tips to prevent weeds:
- Keep the mower blades sharp and avoid excessively low mowing.
- Do not remove more than one-third of the grass height at any one mowing.
- Avoid scalping the grass, as this puts the grass under stress.
If prevention of weeds is not successful, consider using an organic weed killer to treat your lawn. For example, some lawn weed killers contain corn gluten as a weed suppressant.
Grub control doesn’t have the same mechanical options as weed control – you can’t get down on your knees and remove grubs by hand!
There are two popular ways to prevent grubs in your lawn without using harmful chemicals:
- Milky Disease Bacteria, or Milky Spore, can be applied to your lawn at certain times of the year. Milky Spore in the soil is not harmful to humans, pets, birds or beneficial insects.
- The use of insect parasitic nematodes to control soil insects is becoming increasingly popular. Also known as predator or beneficial nematodes, they are small round worms that kill insects but are harmless to other organisms. You can buy these nematodes to help prevent grubs in your lawn.
