As we are about to head into the next mowing season of our passion, so I have to ask the question of what weed killers all of our members are using to cull off the dreaded winter weeds that have sprung up and taken over many of our lawns.
This should be a very informative thread as everyone has different experiences with different chemicals and what works and what doesn't.
Let this thread begin.
Cheers, BB.
I live a 24 Hour lifestyle, but every now and again I seem to fall asleep, well at least that's what my wife tells me.
For my wintergreen and empire zoysia I use Amgrow Bin-Die for broadleaf weeds. This works great on bindii and oxalis, amongst other random broadleaf weeds for me. I have also used Amgrow Kleen Lawn on wintergrass with good success, haven’t tried it on my Zoysia so use Bin-Die for simplicity. I use Amgrow wintergrass killer - this is ok but needs multiple applications. I recently started using a pre-emergent instead, and I suspect within a year or so I will have very few weeds germinating. I reckon I had a quarter of the amount of wintergrass this winter compared to last for example using a pre-emergent. The product I used was Oxafert. I will be using Embargo by Turf Culture this season.
I've been using Spearhead (Bayer) and/or Bow and Arrow (Turf Culture) for the weeds. Only had to use it in a few spots this season. It won't touch winter grass (Poa) though, so I've been pulling it out by hand.
I fear next year that my work will be cut out for me if I don't use a pre emergent herbicide come autumn. At least of the verge anyway, all the neighbour's are riddled with weeds this year. I've actually taken over mowing one of other verge lawns, and I use a separate mower for that job only!
Come autumn I'll be spraying down some Barricade from Syngenta to get ahead of any winter weeds germinating.
I don't collect mowers. I just require Multiple Mowing Solutionsâ„¢.
I have been using Yates Buffalo Pro, works well on the usual suspects but not winter grass. I don't have much come up ( touch wood ) each year so I switch to manual also to remove, comes out easy and in one clump. Was at a garden centre last year and noticed on the shelf a product with bold print on the front, winter grass KILLER, I thought great, this will be easy after a quick scan of the directions. Mixed and applied as per directions, 2 weeks later no change. Gave another application, 2 weeks later the winter grass looked happier than a car full of clowns. I rang the supplier who was a local mob and told him the story, his reply was yes that's right it will have no effect on it at this time of year you need to start spraying at such and such time of year then repeat at bla bla bla. I told him the directions say to mix as per rate and spray, nothing else. He said yes I know, get your money back from where you got it and i'll get the rep to give them a replacement bottle. As Mystyer points out, we are at the mercy of what grows nearby and the breezes here in Perth helps to spread the love. The place on one side of me is a rental and gardening etc is not high on the agenda. I's been vacant for a bit and the weeds were flowering and getting ready to seed so I grabbed one of the old Victa's out and mowed the front yard. I was speaking to the previous tenant one day and offered to spray the weeds in front yard for free explaining this might help the lawn to grow. She flew off the handle telling me I was one of these so and so's who just want to poison every living thing on the planet and told me to f/o at high volume at least half a dozen times before i got to the end of the driveway, then I heard the front door slam shut, a second later the door opened again and she let rip with a blood curdling F/O. I'm reasonably sure this was the last time we engaged in some friendly neighbourly banter. I have included this story in the thread as it clearly shows how much trouble weeds really are. It certainly helps when your lawn is in good shape and well knitted as this tends to crowd the weeds out and prevents them from getting to the soil except for winter grass which gets its roots into the soil even in your healthiest patch of lawn.
I have also been using the Yates Buffalo Pro in the yellow spray on bottle, haven't had many issues yet.
wce, I was coping no end of annoyance from a rental neighbour - fortunately she moved out. This was the one that walked up, called me a noisy b****** and tried to shut of my powertorque.
Noticed one of those bloody black little lawn beetles dead on the edge of the buffalo on sunday though - guess the ant spray with bifenthrin worked on it too.
Do anything you like but never manhandle a blokes powertorque ! I think there are always a few lawn beetles about but unless they in big numbers and start causing brown patches in the lawn I don't think they do much damage.
It comes down to what lawn you have to what sprays you can use, so I'm limited to chemicals considered safe to use on Buffalo lawns and to make matters worse my lawn was planted many many moons ago by my great uncle so I have no idea what type of Buffalo I have which some labels say it's not to be used on certain older Buffalo lawns. It may sound crazy but I got nearly all of my weeds out of the lawn by using a screwdriver and a bucket, I obviously had the time and did a bit every afternoon and as soon as one would pop up I would be on it. Some areas I just sprayed big patches with round up then fertalized the good stuff and removed anything by hand or spot sprayed untill the Buffalo covered the patch. I do have one area that has weeds and I find spraying seems to kill the grass more than the weeds which is a losing battle, the main culprits are creeping oxalis, Poa Anna (winter grass) and onion weed, I also have another weed which I have never been able to identify which drives me nuts. I use Amgrows winter grass Herbacide which works well on winter grass and kikyu if its invading your Buffalo it will also yellow onion weed but doesn't seem to kill it (nothing does). All other weeds I use Amgrows Bin-die which doesn't seem to do much during colder months but in the hotter months it works well. The other method I use is a paintbrush and round up, this is only effective with certain weeds that have a central point where I dab the centre of the weed, crawling vine weeds are impossible to use this method. For taller grass type weeds I let them grow tall then paint round up on a rubber glove and run my hand through the weed tips like hair gel so it doesn't kill the grass underneath then knock it over with the brush cutter when it starts to wilt then hit that area with Bin-die.
I believe that most of these weed Herbacide designed for lawns are not designed to eradicate the weeds as recommended, they are merely designed to keep the weeds under control in other words the weed goes brown disappears and will regrow again (doesn't kill the roots) If this stuff did what it's supposed to do we wouldent have to buy it as much if at all. I also wouldent be surprised if weeds are becoming immune to these Herbacide the more we use them.
Does anyone use pre-emergents?is it effective? And how many seasons do you have to use it before it's under control.
I've been thinking about this one for quite some time and felt that this is a topic that is totally common to us all regardless of what species of grass we have. Weeds are the enemy of us all and I know we won't collectively eradicate them from extinction, but I'm sure we can all help each other out here with our experiences and thus save a lot of cash on snake oil products.
Cheers, BB.
I live a 24 Hour lifestyle, but every now and again I seem to fall asleep, well at least that's what my wife tells me.
I used Oxafert (granular ore emergent and fertiliser in one, decent price too) at the end of last season and the reduction in wintergrass was impressive. I have wintergreen couch out the front and empire zoysia out the back and it worked well on both. I will be trying embargo this season to see how that goes.
Do you mind me asking how much you paid for the Oxafert? Where do you buy it from and how much m2 it covers. Is it safe to use on all lawns?
I'm just never prepared at the end of the growing season and by the time winter comes around it's to late to do it.
Main problem I have with winter grass is the wood ducks sit on the edge of my block and poop the seeds they have eaten out of everyone else's yard, now there always in my yard eating the winter grass and spreading it around while the damn dog just watches them then thinks it's great to roll in their poo when I tell her to chase them off.
I just sprayed the broadleaf weeds that grow in the shade of the house with Brunnings Feed n Weed from Aldi... It might work.... I haven't been watering the lawn, the thoughts of our farmers just west of here selling their animals as they have no grass to feed them. I connected up some hoses to the washing machine , just not to waste the graywater..... next job I just got to make it rain..... speedy
........................Keep your blades sharp......................
BB, Who would want to be a farmer in Aus these days, sure you might get a good year but it will have several years either side that are really bad. You either get floods, fires or drought.
I'm no expert but why are all these farms located in the middle of nowhere where's there's no water? I'm sure back in the first settlement era they farmed on the coast and had plenty of water for livestock and plants, governments keep selling land on the coast to house all these people we don't need and don't upgrade dams or catchments so now we say we are in drought and water restrictions apply, we never had water restrictions in the old days. Why not relocate the farmers to where there are dams with plenty of water and rainfall, then again the government waste so much money on stupid political things why don't they pipe water across the country to where it's needed and create better water catchments. The amount of water run off that flows off theses new housing estates and flow into out rivers and into the ocean is a waste, then we winge about flooding, why can't we harvest this water and treat it. And if sea waters are rising why haven't we looked In to de-salination plants and pump it to these farmers In need. I'm sure if China was in this situation they wouldent be in drought and there would be water to all their farmers. Soon we will be at the mercy of China to survive because we have idiots running this country who only care about a budget being in surplus and passing the top job on to their mate for a life time pension.
I got the Oxafert from Lawn Solutions Australia. It was $35 plus about $15 postage. I had 2 other mates buy. Bag each and we split the postage. It covered 100m2 if I remember correctly. Not a bad price for a one off treatment plus fertiliser. If you look around there may be better prices out there for it. It states on the bag suitable for warm season grasses, I believe Santa Ana has to be treated very carefully with it, most other warm season grasses are ok. I would check the label if you can find one online (had a quick look and couldn’t find it)
The 2 images attached show what I'm up against and I'd say for the first 20 years of looking after the lawns I tried a variety of chemicals to hold back the onslaught of Poa. As many attest, the usually chosen method is to grab a screwdriver and a bucket and hope you don't spill any seeds in the process. The issue can be those seeds can germinate up to 7 years later, so honestly you will never win the battle.
I'm happy to report that I feel I am winning the war on weeds and neighbours through a change of mindset. What if there was a product that worked on stopping the seeds from germinating in the first instance? Well, enter the word "pre-emergent" to the discussion. After much research and internet searching I singled out an active ingredient called PRODIAMINE as the one to work for me. The brick wall I came up against was that local distributors all believe we have acres of land and therefore the need for litres of their product and the poor householder either paid for a lifetime supply of product or went back to the screwdriver and bucket. For reference, at the time a 1L bottle of 18% strength was around $400 to $900. Today Barricade can be bought for about $200 for a 1L at 48% strength. A 10 second search will reveal alternate brands of 2.5kg @ 65% strength around the same price..
I then jumped on eBay USA and looked around... I saw Prodiamine available and enquired with the seller if they had shipped to AU before. With confirmation received, I bought a 2.5kg container (granules) at 65% strength for about $120 and received it with 10 days. Instructions state to use 12g (1Tbs) per 100sqm of lawns, and by my maths that is like 43 years worth of product, if I kept it all to myself. It has been shared a few times and from this year I'll plan a few sneaky sprays into the neighbours area too..
Since using this product I'm unlucky if I see 2 or 3 sprigs of Poa per year!! You don't even need a screwdriver for that as they just pull up with zero effort. I had an intrusion of crab grass 2 years ago and this stuff stopped that coming back too... It would be one of the best items I have spent cash on, not to mention the time saved. Broadleaf still crop up from time to time but I'm finding them to be weak or thin and pull up easily and I find a product called "Buffalo" from www.specialistsales.com.au works much better than Dicamba based products..
My experience with post-emergent treatment for Poa has 2 options. First if the seed heads have NOT arrived, then Bunnings etc have the Winter Grass Killer off the shelf and it worked well. Second, if the heads have appeared the only active ingredient I have found to work is PROPYZAMIDE - used in a product called Poa Pro at 50% strength or David Walker's at around 10% (by memory). Water in well and even if showing signs of working apply again and water in well. You can try and time a late Summer application and if you're lucky you'll minimise new intruders.
The more I learn about lawn care, the more I lean towards putting less "negative" stresses on it. Post emergent is a negative (killing) agent and the surrounding area has to be better off if not subjected to it. 3 applications per year of pre-emergent is less chemical than the regular/constant spraying of post-emergent. Also, concentrating on nurturing the turf AND the soil to produce a better/stronger outcome will naturally help ward off weeds.
Interesting read, I was thinking about this thread today as I got up early and did the rounds for weeds as we have a 35°C day today and I find spraying Bin-Die works well on these extra hot days. This is the stuff I'm curious about as I got one section that the poa goes mad in winter and I have been meaning to look into pre emergent stuff before but I never get around to researching the stuff. While the topics back up I sprayed my front yard with Bin-Die a few months ago and it got rid of 90% of clover, todayI noticed a few springing back up so I hit it again but I read somewhere that to get rid of clover you need plenty of nitrogen in the soil as apparently clover makes its own nitrogen from the air which is why it grows mad in most lawns that are neglected, so fertalizing stresses the weed to die and encourages the lawn to grow so win win situation. Anyone got any tips on Onion weed? Damn stuff is a nightmare, only method I know is paintbrush and round up and the stuff still struggles to wilt and die and never goes away.
Message me your address and I'll send you some, or let me know the next time you're near Kariong .. .. .. ..
Clover loves to grow in my couch and it will pop up from time to time, but like broadleaf it is really thin and weak looking so it just makes me think the pre-emergent plus more care in general is working well. The Buffalo product above is also a great clover killer.
There is an active ingredient called METSULFURON you can do some researching on. I have not used it but there is enough literature around to give hope. Occasionally I see one or 2 pop up but I just pull out a plug of at least 50mm diameter and 100mm deep then backfill with sand..
