What is Crabgrass?
This lawn thug got its name from the crab-shaped rosette leaves it sports. Seed heads pop up in the fall, and the stems will keep on spreading until you stop em. It targets close-cropped lawns, bare spots, and thinning grass areas. By fall, a crabgrass-contaminated lawn will be a sickly, brownish-red color. • Stop Those Seeds! Before the temps in your area reach 60ºF, treat your lawn with a pre-emergent herbicide to stop it before it starts. Once the weather warms, the crabgrass seeds will germinate and spread like wildfire. If you ve waited too long this spring, just hold off until next spring, or you ll just be throwing chemicals on your lawn that won t do it any good. • In The Meantime Even if you missed the pre-emergent boat, you can still control that crabby crop. Mow a bit higher and make sure you fertilize and water your lawn appropriately. Remember crabgrass hates the challenge it gets from a healthy, lush lawn. Thick turf shades the seeds so they can t sprout. Then, bide your
Crabgrass is a type of annual grass which appears in the warm season, and is native to Europe, although it has colonized much of North America as well, to the dismay of many gardeners. The stubborn rooting grass can be difficult to eradicate when it colonizes, and it tends to overwhelm native species with an aggressive seeding pattern and rapid growth habit. As a result, most gardeners try to prevent crabgrass from emerging in their gardens, and take serious steps to eradicate it when it does. Crabgrass can refer to several grasses, all of which are in the genus Digitaria. The two most common problem species are Digitaria sanguinalis and Digitaria ischaemum. Both have high growing branching stems, although they can also adapt to live close to the earth in mats. These mats will spread and put out roots within a season. If allowed to flourish, crabgrass tends to choke out the grasses surrounding it, and will form depressions in a lawn which are reseeded with crabgrass seeds, allowing the
Crabgrass is the primary weed pest of the Mid-Atlantic region. its spreading, aggressive growth habit crowds out desirable grass species in your lawn. Crabgrass is a warm season annual grass. While it germinates in spring, its most vigorous growth depends on warm summer days. Crabgrass seed germinates when soil temperatures reach 65 for at least one week. This usually occurs in the Washington area at the end of March or during the first few weeks of April. The small plants blend in with the surrounding grasses until hot weather arrives in June or July. In response to the high temperatures, our cool weather desirable grasses (Bluegrass, Fescues, Ryes) slow their growth until the cooler weather of the fall. Unfortunately, crabgrass accelerates its growth and can soon dominate the lawn. Growth of crabgrass will slow or stop with cooler weather in the fall, but by then it may have already crowded out the desirable plants. Since crabgrass is an annual weed, it will die with the first hard f
