New Lawn Overrun by Weeds

Hi All,
I have my first garden. It was very uneven, 6 foot grass and weeds and a complete nightmare to clear.
After removing the long grass, weeds, rotavating, levelling, I sprayed the turned soil with glyphosate, waited two weeks and laid grass seeds.....
4 weeks later and my grass is now 3/4 inches. However the amount of weeds also growing is ridicules. I would like any advice on how to remove these weeds (knife, weed killer, etc.) when I have such a new lawn.
I have included two photos, one of the garden and of the weeds.

Garden - http://postimg.org/image/rqxphlsx1/
Weeds- http://postimg.org/image/4rc23i0ih/
Any advice would be great
Many Thanks JJ.

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner JJ. Unfortunately even though you've used glyphosate it can't kill anything that is still in the ground on application. Any roots or seeds that are still laying in the soil will re-grow sadly.

At this point your young lawn would probably not cope with a lawn weed killer treatment, obviously glyphosate is out of the question and using a knife would be hopeless. If you can bear to live with it - it is probably better to leave it now until next spring when the weeds become active again and you can use an ordinary lawn weed killer. Mowing the lawn for the time being will help keep them under control.

 

Hello and welcome JJ.

Sorry, Sheal is right. Spraying glyphosate onto bare soil is the same as spraying money down a drain. Glyphosate is a most effective residual herbicide, but it needs foliage and active growth to work. Its eco friendly credentials come from that fact that once it comes into contact with soil borne bacteria, it is very quickly broken down into harmless starches.

So, what to do. Well, I'd start by mowing it, regularly. This will eventually weaken the weeds. set the mower on the highest cutting height because the young grass will still be delicate.

A bit of a warning, I'm pretty sure I saw bindweed leaves among your lawn weeds. Bindweed is a particular problem. It strangles other plants and it spreads like wildfire. It also propagates itself very, very freely. Because of that, I'd go against the unusual advice, and suggest that you don't compost the grass clippings or use them as mulch, but instead bin them.

The dandelions and docks, I'd take a large flat blade screwdriver, push it in at a steep angle just at the centre of each weed, aiming to slice through the central taproot, and then just prise it up. you wont get all the root out but you'll get the whole rosette of leaves, giving the grass a chance to outgrow it. Wont work on the bindweed though, which is the small, low growing love heart shaped leaves.

 

There used to be a selective weedkiller for "new lawns", don't know if it still exists?

Otherwise (but check the packets) you need to wait 6 months. So applying a selective weedkiller next Spring, or a combined "weed and feed" granular product, will sort out the weeds, and if that leaves bare patches you may want to "over seed" some more grass seed.

Keep mowing it regularly, that will give a lot of the weeds that have germinated a hard time and they will then succumb. (Don't cut the new lawn too short though )

 

Some herbicides only need 6 weeks, some up to 18 months. Read the labels to find one that is good for your lawn.

 

Hi Everyone, many many thanks for all the great advice.

I will just smile and mow for the next 6/12 months so I don't damage my grass, and then search for a lawn weed killer.

Coming back to the bind weed warning. If I posted a close up of the leaves of the main weed I have would someone be able to confirm it this is the case?

J.

 

Yep.

 

My first thought was ranunculus ficaria (Lesser Celandine), but a clearer photo will help confirm it.

 

Ok, these are the main weeds. There are so so so many now. :-/

Weeds and more weeds;

http://postimg.org/image/vnsrql29t/

http://postimg.org/image/z26csz8ap/

 

I've doctored the photo to show you which I think may be bindweed, but I'd need a closer, clearer shot to be sure. If it is bindweed, it is not (currently) the dominant weed in there. The ones I've pointed are with blue arrows are, I'm pretty sure, NOT bindweed (though I don't know its name). I'm more concerned about the ones I've pointed out with the red arrows.

 

Can't see any bindweed in those pics, but its not that weed that I'd be concerned about. We've cross posted, did you see the edited pic I just posted up?

 

Hi sorry, I think we did.

Ok so I picked every different weed I could see, here's a pic;

http://postimg.org/image/tbay7y1gj

 

The second leaf from left, top row, I'm about 95% sure that's bindweed. I'd be 100% if you said the stem it came off was like a thin string and when you gently pulled it upwards you found that it ran quite far, and on tracing the stem back to the ground, you found several other such thin stringy stems leading off all over the place.

 

Thanks again for the advice.... Unfortunately you were correct, and I officially hate bind weed!