Plant taking over my lawn

Hello all.

I have a plant taking over my lawn and I'm hoping someone can advise me on how to get rid of it, other than digging up the whole lawn or killing all the grass!

The leaves are flat and pointy, about four times longer than they are wide, with serrated edges. They are usually the same shade of green as my grass but new leaves sometimes have a red tinge. The stalks are green or red, a bit furry and fairly easy to snap. The roots are like wire - even when they are only about two millimetres thick, and you could use the thickest roots, over a centimetre in diameter, as a rope.

This plant was sitting in soil at the side of my lawn when I bought the house 18 months ago. Last summer a few shoots started popping up in my lawn a metre or two from the original plant and I pulled them up. This summer, from about a month or two ago, I suddenly have about thirty shoots all over my lawn (about 3m x 5m) and some are big enough to hide a football under! My neighbour has a lot too, although it's not obvious on his side - he's 96 and his garden has seen better days.

I have an electronic picture (jpeg) of the plant on my PC but I don't know how to put this on the website.

Hope someone can help! No rush, I'm back to work tomorrow so won't be able to tackle it again until the weekend.

Ian.

 

Hi, it's difficult to say without a photo. Have a look here:
http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=32;t=000001
Very good instructions about posting photos!

 

ikay..it sounds like plantain in your lawn but cant say for sure as i cant see it..you will have to remove it when it appears before it spreads further..

 

My first thought was plantain too, WF, but I find that easy to pull out, and regular mowing keeps it down if not out! Easiy recognisable from the seedheads:




If this is it, as I said regular mowing keeps it down and stops it seeding. If you use weedkillers a spot weedkiller would be fine as it's easy to target the rosettes.

 

Hello Liz and Wildflower, and thanks for your suggestions.

I've had another browse and I think it might be Ground Elder. I've pulled off most of the leaves and I've got some Weedol left over from the previous house owners, so I'm trying that out on some of the other leaves. I had a look at that link for putting photos on but it looks like I can't use it without signing up for junk mail.

Will let you know how I get on!

Ian.

 

Hi ikay - you will find instructions for posting a photo here if you're interested!!

And welcome to GC!

 

Just mow it. No plant of any height can withstand regular mowing.

 

Welcome ikay from Sheffield.

BM

 

ground elder is perniscious. it looks like the leaf on the canadian flag, it can be tiny or big, the roots are typically white and link up to each new plants, try painting on glycophosphate, plantain has thick stap like leaves