Even if there’s still snow on the ground where you live, there’s no denying that spring is around the corner. So, get ready to take your
Brinly-Hardy lawn care attachments out of the garden shed!
In early spring, before the forsythia bush blooms, you need to apply pre-emergent weed control in your yard to keep crabgrass and other grassy weeds from popping up in your lawn this spring.
What is Crabgrass?
Crabgrass is a warm-season grassy weed. Crabgrass and other grass weeds can take over your lawn leaving your property looking dull and unkept.
If you live in the northern part of the U.S. and southern Canada, you have cool season grasses on your yard. Cool season grasses grow best in colder climates. For example, if you live in the North, your lawn will go dormant when temperatures start climbing up to the 90° mark.
Meanwhile, crabgrass and its cousins, foxtails, barnyard grass, goosegrass, and annual bluegrass are warm-season grasses except bluegrass, which is a cool season weed. They grow “like a weeds” in the hot summer months—including when your cool season turf goes dormant.
It’s vital for you to put down pre-emergent weed control starting in the early spring to stop crabgrass and its cousins from gaining ground. Typically, lawn care experts recommend that pre-emergent applications start by the time the forsythia bush blooms, which varies depending on where you live.
And this is a good rule of thumb considering it’s a sign that the ground has warmed up enough to apply weed controls. According to the
University of Missouri’s Extension, the soil needs to reach 55°F for five nights in a row to put down pre-emergent herbicides.
Plus, you’ll need more than one application of pre-emergent weed control to protect your lawn all summer from grassy weeds sprouting in your yard.
How Does Pre-Emergent Weed Control Work?
There are two types of pre-emergent weed controls: organic and traditional. Organic pre-emergent is corn gluten. Corn gluten meal comes in both liquid and granular formulas.
Traditional pre-emergent weed controls include herbicides that are liquid or granular as well. Popular synthetic pre-emergent weed controls include Round-Up, Scott’s, Preen and Ortho products.
How does pre-emergent weed control work in the soil? It forms a barrier in the ground to prevent weed seeds from germinating. Grassy weeds are aggressive and reproduce through tillers and seeds.
For example, the
University of Massachusetts Extension says that one crabgrass plant can produce up to 150-700 tillers (sprouts) and up to 150,000 seeds.
Since grassy weeds reproduce at a rapid rate, crabgrass could take over your lawn. The weed control stops these thousands of seeds and tillers from germinating.
One rule of thumb: If you’re planning on reseeding your lawn this spring, you need to wait because the
crabgrass weed control will keep your lawn grass from germinating too.
Applying Pre-Emergent Weed Control
When it comes to the application of pre-emergents, it starts with the right tools. At Brinly-Hardy, we have three lawn care and garden attachments to help you apply pre-emergent weed control this spring. Our attachments work for both organic and traditional weed controls.
- Tow-spreaders: Our tow-spreaders are durable and have a large poly hopper to allow you to apply granular pre-emergent weed control to your yard.
- Push-spreaders: Our push spreaders allow you to apply pre-emergent weed control evenly and consistently on your smaller yard or in those more narrow areas.
- 25-gallon lawn sprayer: Our lawn sprayer is versatile and provides a consistent application of liquid pre-emergent weed control. The collapsible swing-away booms and in-line mounted tank design allows you to get in-between lawn and garden gates, maneuver around garden structures and fit in narrow strips of turfgrass.
As the snow melts on your lawn are you seeing gray or pinkish patches? It could be snow mold. Read more in this blog.
Cultural Management Practices
Pre-emergent weed control isn’t the only defense against crabgrass. In many ways, as a property owner, your lawn care practices affect how well your turfgrass can stand up to weed invasions. While it’s true that pre-emergent weed control can help stop crabgrass in its tracks, good lawn care practices are also beneficial. Mowing by only taking the top third off the grass blades, aeration and overseeding, watering techniques as well as dethatching your lawn all contribute to a strong, dense turf.
And a thick lawn also crowds out weeds by preventing the sunshine from reaching the soil to encourage weed growth. Plus, your lawn grass develops deep roots systems when you resupply the seed bank in the early summer and fall months.
Brinly-Hardy has the lawn care attachments to help you produce thick, green lawn grass:
- Our spike and plug aerators allow you to pull plugs of soil out of the ground to relieve compaction.
- Our lawn dethatchers pull out excess thatch from your lawn so it can breathe and get more sunlight and water. You’ll find that your yard grass is healthier and insect-free when there is less than a half an inch of thatch under your turfgrass.
- Our lawn rollers press down grass seeds deep into the soil. If you have sod installed on your yard, our lawn rollers push down the sod so that the roots are touching the ground.
Learn more about when to use lawn rollers in this blog post.
- Our push and tow spreaders apply fertilizer, turfgrass seed and other products that help make your lawn healthy and robust.
Where You Can Find Brinly-Hardy Products
You can find Brinly-Hardy lawn care and garden attachments in both brick and mortar retailers as well as online stores. Here is where you can find our lawn care products:
If you have questions about Brinly-Hardy lawn equipment, call our customer service at 877-728-8224, or you can fill out our
contact form.
Our customer service department is open from Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET, and on Fridays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET.
