Crabgrass

Dealing with crabgrass in your lawn is really simple. The fact is that to have that pristine lawn like everyone else you have to do one of 4 things it does not matter right now that your lawn does not have any crabgrass yet thats the secret!

Just because ,you may have a nice lawn and your saying to yourself my lawn is fine think again.

The people with the nice looking  lawn all year...  they do a lot of work in March ,April and May and the rest of the year as you saw in my month to month plan.

So you will  have to do one of these things depends on your threshold.

#1 put down pre emergents in march

 before the crabgrass starts to sprout/or grow on your beautiful lawn that has no crabgrass on it at the moment then apply more in July before it emerges again then again in September

#2Wait to see if you have any crabgrass first

 and if you have any just spot treat it in May and late April and June  with either selective or Post emergent

Post- emergents are what they say they are they only selective treat crabgrass leaving the grass intact then getting rid of Crabgrass after it has sprouted opposed to in the spring when you would use a pre emergent.

Also be aware if you have not put nothing down then its June or May then your lawn is filled with Crabgrass putting down a pre emergent after you seen crabgrass is not going to do anything for you.

Remember crabgrass germinates when the soil temps are in the 60s so when the daytime reaches 70 Fahrenheit   for 3 consecutive days thats is the time you should have applied the pre emergent 5 days ago from that point in time.

#3 do nothing just  cut it down with lawn mower

This is what i prefer to do as i have a tiny amount of it and the average person rarely sees it.

So what i do is cut the grass regualry twice a week always cutting just a third off the top. Never letting the crabgrass spread or grow,in some cases if you have just a small amount of it and you cut regulary the crabgrass will first blend in with your turf ,then eventually the grass clippings will get rid of the crabgrass if you  mulch the lawn. So dont bag the clippings .  Have a purpose when you mow the lawn ! Do not just mow the lawn cause your Wife wants you too or your bored or you just need something to do! Always mow with a purpose.

Maybe you see some other weeds and you dont want them to sprout go over them with the bag and bag them. Maybe you were on vacation for 12 days and you did not mow the lawn for 12 days so bring the mower blade to its highest point go over the lawn in one pass. Then lower it one notch then go over the lawn again this way you will be avoiding to have clumps of clippings which you can ruin your lawn. Maybe last time you mowed north and south now this time do a checkorboard pattern or a diamond so you have that nice manicured look as if a landscapper  did your lawn so you should always mow with a purpose! You will be glad you did.

#4 Put down Dimension in November and Spring

another option is to kill off the Crabgrass in the fall so it wont sprout in the spring. Then do some more killing in the Spring too so you know its gone . A good way to do this is to use Dimension It really works just  make sure  you read the instructions  and you follow  them,as if you dont water it in well enough  or you do not apply it evenly and get too much of it on a section of your lawn.If you make just a minor  mistake with it it will burn your lawn.This is not the look you want in early spring when everyone else grass is green but, yours half of it is burnt.Who wants to wait weeks for it to be green again when it finally disappears.
We all been there we start putting down fertilizer or a pre emergent then we are in a rush to watch the game or go out drinking then we dont even read the directions then we just throw a whole bunch of pre emergent on the ground without reading the directions ultimately ruining your lawn so dont let it be you!

#5 Spot Treat the Crabgrass  instead

If by some chance you only have a small amount of crabgrass in your lawn then forget the dimension as dimension is for lawns that are fully affected ,if you only have say 3 or small minor spots in your lawn then just spot treat with  Spectracide. Spectracide is very effective as i have used this in the past for small areas. No matter how great your lawn is you still will need to spot treat things here and there even while your lawn does not have any crabgrass. Unless you dont kill it all off in the fall. So here is a before picture i took the other day when i put it down,

So the crabgrass is gone so now  you can see how effective this is. so go out and get yourself some spetracide it does work.

i took a wider shot to show you  that all the crabgrass is gone the first picture i took a few weeks ago was a close up so i zoomed out to take a wider picture to show you that it was not a fake picture at all and all the crabgrass is really gone so spectracide trully is an amazing product.

The only issue now is with the weather in the 90s you would not  use any crabgrass treatment so id wait until the fall or  next spring.

If you use something else for spot treating crabgrass share your thoughts in the comments below if youd recommend something else id love to hear your ideas.