Crab Grass with Comical Name is No Joke to Millions of Home Owners

Crab grass is a family of plants which, despite it's reputation, is not strictly speaking a weed. Crab grass seeds can be used for flour and food supplements and the stems are often used for feeding cattle. Nevertheless, it's unsightly appearance and stubborn persistence has made it public enemy number one for home owners all around North America.

The characteristics of  crab grass are also a clue to it's control. Crab grass is a hearty plant that will continue to crop up in a lawn summer after summer if allowed to do so. The

There are three factors in the crab grass life cycle which, if exploited, give the home owner a tactical advantage.

First, crab grass typically germinates later than the rest of the grass in your lawn. (The kind you want to keep and probably paid big bucks for.) This is why many have been lulled into a false sense of victory. They think that this year the blight has passed them by, only to awaken one morning with patches of undesirables among their carefully cultivated lawn.
By using a pesticide early in the spring, you can often prevent the crab grass from growing. These pre-emergent pesticides stop the establishment of the crab grass seeds from the previous season.

The second and related factor pertains to the conditions under which crab grass seeds will grow into  plants. Crab grass needs a lot of open ground for proper germination. If your turf is already strong, thick and healthy, any viable crab grass seeds still in your soil won't have a chance to grow. This is why the early use of a combination weed and feed preparations is so popular for combating crab grass.

Finally, if crab grass does crop up, you can prevent it from becoming established in two ways. Naturally, weeding and hitting them with herbicides will kill the plant, but another technique is to keep the lawn short. Crab grass flowers are long, slender and finger like, giving rise to the plants Latin root, 'Digitaria'. By keeping the lawn trimmed, you will cut down these flowers before they can produce the seeds for next season's campaign on your lawn.

Home owner's, get to know your enemy. With a little diligence and some planning, you can have the crab grass free lawn that you are looking for.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/landscaping-articles/crab-grass-with-comical-name-is-no-joke-to-millions-of-home-owners-3153666.html

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