Like Southern Velvet. Or Virginia Beauty Grass.

If it weren't for Crabgrass, I wouldn't have a lawn. I've been living in this house for 16 years. I tried to establish a fescue lawn when I first moved and and couldn't keep enough water on it. I tried Bermuda and St Augustine, and neither could keep up with the crabgrass. Aerating didn't help. Pre-emergent never really worked and by Mid-June I always had a lawn full of crabgrass. I finally gave up and decided it must be what the good Lord wants here. So I decided I would never water or fertilize my lawn again. And I've been faithful to that decision for years. And now, from July to about the beginning of December, I have one of the best lawns in the neighborhood. I've actually been asked what I planted. My nextdoor neighbor actually has a landscaping company and can't keep his lawn looking as nice as the wild crabgrass I have the covers my lawn. I can cut it low. It holds the lines from the mower. It's traffic resistant. And I never have to bitch about crabgrass in my crabgrass. By late June and July, it has smothered out just about every other weed.

Has anyone else given up to crabgrass?



My neighbor's fescue lawn to the left.

Looks like a Scott Lawn ad. Of course a close up shot of the yard will reveal the presence of CRABGRASS!

You should be pleased with your results.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
You should be pleased with your results.

If only they were my results. Literally, all I do to it is cut it.

I'm currently in the midst of a battle with crabgrass at my new house.

It had a new Bermuda sod lawn laid down by the builder back in late May/early June, but apparently the ground was previously infested with crabgrass. By the time I first moved in at the end of July, there were perfectly straight lines of crabgrass all over the yard, with it poking up basically anywhere there was a seam between sod slabs.

Over the last month, I've slowly beaten it back, and am down to ~20% of the yard still having crabgrass now. But it's been kinda slow going, with hand weeding aided by Spectracide Weed Stop. (The sod is looking a little worse for wear due to the herbicide application, but the crabgrass is definitely getting the worst of it.)


My main problem with simply letting crabgrass take over a yard is that it grows so quickly, and inconsistently. So a crabgrass yard may look nice for the day or two immediately after mowing, but by the second or third day or so, the crabgrass has sprouted up all haphazardly again, the yard looks like a mess, and you have to mow all over again. I'm not in the mood to mow 2x-3x per week... I'd rather mow once a week and spend less than half that additional time and effort on keeping the grass healthy and the crabgrass at bay.

It grows fast, but since I have so much, it's pretty consistent. I have to cut it about every 4-5 days. Anything past that and I leave clumps on the ground. In the spring and early summer, I can mulch the grass. Mid July through September I have to bag it.

I won the crabgrass war this month. We were the first house on our block and the lot next to me just got finished and sodded this week.

I have sprayed it and hand pulled it where it came up from the cracks in the sod from when it was laid down. And since they sodded the yard next door I won’t be getting any wild crabgrass from that lot.

My neighbor came over when he saw me first pulling it back in April...I explained I get to pull the grass and look at the fine wimmins walking for their health.

And god bless the inventor of yoga pants.

At my house, it's Fat Calf Grass. It is an ideal forage - and it's free.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
And god bless the inventor of yoga pants.

Well, yes, but...too bad they don't come with instructions. Or at least a little taste. 90+ percent of wimmen that wear yoga pants...shouldn't.

I DID see one example at the supermarket a while back. Young, fit, tall and legs clear up to here. I got a little woozy there for a minute.

What really made my day was a woman who appeared to be in her 60's saw me doing the double-take, looked at me, laughed and shook her head. I just grinned and shrugged.

Yoga pants should be worn by permit only. A license.

You should have a moderate height to width ratio.

You should not be volumetrically gifted. But most important is that if you stop moving but the pants don’t that should be a permit violation.

Oh and nice lawn

Southern Velvet....

I have the opposite issue. Many of my customers call everything that stands out in their lawn "crabgrass". Tall or course fescue is commonly a complaint of "I have crabgrass".

What's the French word for crabgrass?

I’ve got a solution for you, assuming you dare upset the Virginia Velvet gods; I’m a sod grower in the south, coming from the sports turf world of the northeast.

Scott’s ProVista Kentucky Bluegrass.

I grow ProVista St. Augustine and it has been a game changer for us in the land of Torpedograss and Tropical Signalgrass.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:
What's the French word for crabgrass?

Digitaire

Sounds posh!

Aaah, grass. I vaguely remember such a thing existing.

Nice lawn, BTW.

You won't find any in my lawn.

A guy up the street from me got his law sodded I think last fall. It was nice through the winter and spring. Then the daily 90s hit and he couldn't keep enough water on it. Guess what? Now it is thin, mostly brown, and covered in crabgass, oops, Southern Velvet. It's the greenest part of his yard.

When I lived in MO and MN, we constantly battled crab grass.

But in Boca Raton FL, they planted the stuff in lawns. They probably had a different name for it, but I don’t know what it was called. Horrible to walk on!

There is crabgrass and there is crabgrass. Some of it looks pretty good. But most of what we have her in Wis. is clumps or fans out making a real mess of your lawn.