To say we had the worst yard on the block would be quite accurate. All last summer, this house was vacant and the lawn wasn’t cared for either. We tried our best when we moved in at the tail end of summer/beginning of fall to give it attention and honestly, it was looking alright–but the lack of care last summer must have come back with a vengeance this year. Six weeks ago, our lawn looked like this.
I wanted to cry. I thought we needed to start all over–rip it all out and plant new grass. Â For a couple weeks, while we were still figuring out our game plan, we just mowed and hoped our neighbors wouldn’t notice. During our research phase, one neighbor did come over and make small chat and eventually asked us to please treat the dandelions because his house was down wind and they were popping up over there. That was six weeks ago. And, hey, we figured it out! Our yard now looks like this:
Here’s the opposite direction six weeks ago:
And today:
We’re thrilled with the progress. Before I go into how we got here, I will say, we did use chemicals. I know some people prefer to treat their lawns naturally–but desperate times call for desparate measures, we say. We made sure Charly and Greta steered clear of the treated areas for a few days. Here’s what we did:
1. Kill the dandelions. Because we had so many weeds, we were a bit skeptical about spraying them. I don’t know why, it just didn’t seem like anything short of dousing the hole thing in gasoline and torching it would do the job. And if we did kill the dandelions–would there be any grass left? We picked up a sprayer (one of those backpack ones) and a bottle of concentrated weed killer, and sprayed every single one. The product we used is called Weed Free Zone.
After a couple days, some wilted, but the weeds didn’t really die. They just mutated into these gnarly, super weeds that looked like they were straight out of a scene from The Little Shop of Horrors. We read this could happen and decided to spray them again. It took about a week after that, but the dandelions all shriveled up and began disappearing more and more as we continued mowing the lawn and working on the grass.
2. Replaced and adjusted sprinklers. We had a few sprinklers that weren’t doing their job. For some reason, our yard has the type of sprinklers you see at golf courses – you know, the ones that spray like 20 feet but can’t seem to get the grass immediately surrounding them. So we replaced a couple of those with short-range RainBird heads and it made a huge difference in bringing back to life those that were once dead. The thicker and healthier your grass is, the less weeds will come through. Some people actually recommend spreading grass seed as a way to choke out the weeds, but we opted to try to grow the grass we currently had–just better.
3. Adjusted the watering start time, duration and frequency.Each zone on our lawn was set to water for 10 minutes, every day, right in the middle of the day. The problem with that is the sun is out so it evaporates the water for the first several minutes, so essentially our lawn was receiving hardly any water at all and thus our grass wasn’t getting the nutrients it needed to be strong and healthy. Instead we set each zone to water for 45 minutes every day beginning at 2am. This way the water doesn’t evaporate. We kept it going every day for about 2 weeks, to improve the health of the ground, then decreased the frequency to 3 or 4 times a week, depending on the weather.
4. Adjusted the mower blade height. A lot of people like to cut their grass really short, because it looks nice. And I agree, it does look really nice. The problem with that is moisture can escape from the ground easier. By raising the mower blades a couple clicks so we’re cutting about 2.5 inches, it keeps it looking trim and clean, but is long enough to hold onto the moisture for as long as possible after watering.
5. Weed & Feed. (We used the Ace Brand, but have used Scott’s in the past and it works just the same) This is another chemical, and it was a game changer. We’ve always been leery about it, but after using it on one side of the yard and not the other (to test), we saw a major, major difference. It comes in big 50lb bags, and is just little pellets. So we used our fertilizer spreader and put it all over the yard. It blocks weeds from coming in and really allows the grass to flourish. The Weed & Feed was what really drove the dandelions out completely. They just disappeared into the grass and are no more.
It feels amazing to not be embarrassed of our lawn anymore–to have it on our side instead of what felt like battling it! It’s definitely an ongoing job, but now that things are under control, fertilizing twice a year and keeping up on care should be easy going from here on out. Dandelions. Conquered.
Today is May 19, 2018 … Just happened to run across this post. Every front yard door n my street has dandelions with the exception of our next door neighbor who treats with his own solution as well as a hired weed free mobile company..
Our mower was in the shop for 2 weeks, so I asked if he could mow our yard, while we were gone a few days.
Come to find out, he has sprayed/treated our yard.. that’s all we can figure. The dandelion greens I sauté, with garlic and lemon pepper have been eradicated from my property. He has not bothered other neighbors.. just mine.
I cannot openly accuse him, but he did have access to our yard. I have to use words wisely when I approach him. It’s not like he didn’t know. I have told him and showed him articles that if you ever want to grow clover for the bees and you treat your yard it will take SIX YEARS BEFORE THE SOIL WILL ACCEPT THE CLOVER.
I feel violated.. I now have to fence off an area and grow my dandelions separately. I also eat Plaintain leaves as well as Lambs quarters. And purslane. I have tried to seed my edible greens but they tend to grow where THEY CHOOSE TO BE.
My 12foot tall Iron Weed for the Monarhs Has bern Weed whacked down as well..
My next prospect is to have a security camera around house installed… and wireless so I can observe with my phone.
I would never think to trespass onto a neighbor’s property and do whatever I please.
And of all things.. these are church-goin neighbors.
OMG! Church-going people did this????
This was the third result from googling “my weeds mutate when I spray them”. I’m just glad I’m not alone. I was about to hire a cryptobotanist or something. Good to know, I’ll keep spraying them.
Can you use this some product on flower beds? I have weeds that over run my beds.
Hi Danny! Depending on the type of weeds you’d probably be ok using the first product listed, so long as you don’t spray the other plants (flowers and such). But the Weed & Feed is meant specifically for grassy areas, so I wouldn’t use that.
I understand needing to reset the state of your lawn, I’m approaching that point myself, but in future, keep the kids and dogs away for a week or two after putting weed and feed out. 2,4,D has a half life of six days.
If you want a safer herbicide to use, glyphosate is pretty much gone as soon as it hits the soil, so spot treating weeds with it is a better option than using a persistent herbicide. Be careful, though, don’t use a mixed formulation with glyphosate and something else. Any weedkiller which promises to keep weeds away. That means the herbicide is going to hang around in the soil, getting on your feet, your children, your dog and in the waterways.
I don’t like using chemicals either but sometimes you have to to get things under control and start over. Your lawn looks great! Another benefit to higher grass is I think it makes it harder for weeds to grow. Our lawn looked horrible when we paid a lawn service to mow it. We told them to set the mower blades higher but they gave it a buzzcut and year after year the lawn looked worse and worse. Bald patches all over, dry, etc. Now our neighbor’s son mows it with higher blades and it looks great. We never water – our property is 1.5 acres and we’re not investing in a system that large, plus it’s really not needed once a lawn is established. I don’t think lawns need as much water as people think. Sometimes we have drought for months and the lawn dries up a bit but it always bounces back.