Weeds can help identify problems in your lawn

Some people wonder if talking to their plants will help them grow. Some think playing soothing music may also help. Though I know no reason not to talk to your plants, I suggest you stop if they begin to talk back.

Then again, what would plants say if they could speak? Let’s consider what we could learn from a common variety of garden plants — our weeds.

Weeds teach us a lot about surviving in the garden. They survive where nothing else will. Why is this?

Weeds produce many seeds. Some pigweeds can produce more than 100,000 seeds per plant. Some weed seeds can remain in the ground for 20 years or more because many weed seeds are dormant. Dormant seeds will not germinate until soil conditions are right for plant growth. This can mean that dormant seeds will not germinate immediately but will come up over several years.

These factors create a large “seed bank” in the soil. A square foot of soil may contain millions of seeds that may germinate over several years. Even if new weed seeds are never added, soil still can produce weeds because of this weed seed bank.

This means we must approach weed control with a practical outlook. Do not try to kill every weed seed. We cannot do that. Try to prevent weed seeds from germinating, and do not expect complete weed control.

February is a good time to apply preventative weed control (pre-emergence) herbicides to prevent summer weeds. The weeds that escape these weed controls can be controlled by hand weeding, mowing or herbicides.

Though weeds are tough competitors, many will not survive competition from other plants. Weeds must compete with good plants for light, water, fertilizer and room to grow.

This means one of our best weed controls is a healthy landscape. Keep our lawns, shrubs and trees healthy, and weeds should be less of a problem.

This is especially true in lawns. Properly select, establish and maintain turf so that it will cover the soil well. Then weeds will not have a place to get started.

Weeds can be indicators of poor growing conditions in a lawn. The factors that prevent good lawn growth also may encourage weed growth. See if your lawn has any of these weeds, and you may identify why your lawn is growing poorly in the weedy area.

If the soil in your landscape is compacted, you can expect weeds like annual bluegrass, goosegrass, common lespedeza and path rush.

The weeds that are common in wet areas include sedges, rushes, annual bluegrass, mosses, pennywort and Virginia buttonweed. In areas without enough water, expect weeds like spurge, poorjoe and common lespedeza.

Soil fertility can influence the types of weeds in an area. Low nitrogen soils can encourage weeds like mosses, lespedeza, clovers and vetches. High nitrogen soils may have weeds like common chickweed, annual bluegrass and ryegrass.

Though weeds are a problem, they may not be the main one. The growing conditions for your lawn may be the main problem.

Use these weeds as indicators to find the real problem in your lawn. Note that just because you have these weeds does not mean that you have these problems. But these weeds may help you identify problems to look for.

Many turf weeds are low-growing and are not controlled by mowing. In fact, mowing regularly controls tall weeds and encourages shorter weeds. This is why certain weeds are recurring problems in lawns while others are problems in other areas.

Proper mowing height encourages good turf growth and discourages weed growth. Mowing heights for lawns are: zoysia and hybrid Bermuda lawns .5 to 1.5 inches, centipede and zoysia lawns 1 to 1.5 inches, common Bermuda and carpetgrass lawns 1 to 2 inches and St. Augustine lawns 2 to 3 inches. Mow lawns often enough to remove only one-third of the total turf height at each mowing.

If you need help identifying your weeds, visit www.georgiaturf.org and look under “Pest Management” and then “Weed Management.” My thanks go to Laura Miller, Polk County, Fla., extension agent, for information on identifying turf problems based on the weeds growing in an area.

Willie Chance is retired from UGA Extension in Houston County. To reach your local extension office, call (800) ASK-UGA1 from any non-cell phone. To subscribe to the central Georgia home gardening newsletter, e-mail mg@uga.edu.