Was pulling weeds in my yard the other day when I found this vine like stuff growing along the ground underneath the lawn. I can’t ever recall seeing anything like this before. Now, I don’t have what most would call a lawn, it looks like a lawn and I mow it like any other lawn, but I do try to keep the worst of the weeds down.

Can anyone identify this plant? No amount of searching will come up with anything like this.

First photo is what the root and vine part looks like.



Not a real good photo but I’m fairly certain these are the leaves of the plant.



Third photo is a bunch of the leaves.

A few possibilities:
Strawberry
Buttercup
Groundsel
Ragwort

Creeping Charlie.
[FLASH_VIDEO]


Link to original video: https://youtu.be/SQcqr0pi-yc [/FLASH_VIDEO]

I found an Ortho product that fits on the end of a garden hose that killed this without harming the yard.

I also found that you can harm your yard if you self-medicate, so to speak, using a Spectracide concentrate and a universal sprayer with a dial for dosage.

So, I purchased Ortho again, with integral spray head, for the next application.

A weed can be any plant that grows where you don't want it to grow.

I thought I had seen weeds around the different parts of the country but the Canada Thistle is the worst I've run across. The roots can sometimes be a foot long.

does it look like this?

https://www.preen.com/weeds/or

common mallow

I’ve fought creeping Charlie for a few years and have found it to be resistant to 2-4-D to a large extent. I used an Ortho product Weed-B-Gone lawn chickweed,clover and oxalis killer last fall. The product doesn’t have an immediate effect but by spring the creeping Charlie was dissipated by 95% with no damage to the lawn.

I had thousands of Canada thistle. As well as spotted knapweed, dalmation toadflax and a few assorted others....

2-4-D based herbicide works great. De Amine 4 the cheap alternative works fine. Most Farm stores have it, at least in MT anyway.

Get a small sprayer. Mix an ounce of 2-4-D per gallon of water. Add a squirt of DAWN dish soap as a surfactant. Mix well.

Spray enough too wet the leaves. Early morning on a sunny/warm day works best.

Kills the broadleaf weeds not your grass.

^^^^^^ Adding a marker dye to your mixture is a huge help to see exactly where you’ve sprayed and where you’ve missed. I can’t recall for sure but I may have bought it at Atwood’s or Tractor Supply. It’s in the same area with the chemicals.
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Edit to add: Here is an example. A dye also is useful if you’re worried about Drift, don’t want to get bad chemicals on plants you don’t want harmed, and cuts waste,some chemicals are danged expensive. Link to Marker Dye

quote:

Originally posted by OKCGene:
^^^^^^ Adding a marker dye to your mixture is a huge help to see exactly where you’ve sprayed and where you’ve missed. I can’t recall for sure but I may have bought it at Atwood’s or Tractor Supply. It’s in the same area with the chemicals.
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Edit to add: Here is an example. A dye also is useful if you’re worried about Drift, don’t want to get bad chemicals on plants you don’t want harmed, and cuts waste,some chemicals are danged expensive. Link to Marker Dye

Instead of using a purpose made marker dye, take a look at Lake and Pond colorant. The marker dye referenced is an 8oz bottle, concentrate, and it would take 3 bottles for my 26 gallon sprayer tank. I buy the Lake and Pond colorant by the gallon (it is also concentrated), and for the same money as 3 bottles of the marker dye, I get a gallon of L&P colorant. I only need 5 oz of the L&P colorant for every 26 gallons of sprayed material, so I get 25 tanks colored per gallon of colorant. It is safe for fish, so it poses no problem for pets or other animals. Like the marker dye, it fades away over about two week period.

Here in Wyoming you can take an online course to receive a private applicator license, enabling you to purchase and apply restricted use herbicides. Some of the weeds mentioned are pretty tough to kill with 2,4-D alone. A cocktail with Tordon, 2,4-D, and surfactant is really effective. Often cost-shared by county weed and pest.

A commercial surfactant works best...I mentioned Dawn as it helps but is not optimal.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
Here in Wyoming you can take an online course to receive a private applicator license, enabling you to purchase and apply restricted use herbicides. Some of the weeds mentioned are pretty tough to kill with 2,4-D alone. A cocktail with Tordon, 2,4-D, and surfactant is really effective. Often cost-shared by county weed and pest.

All true. But for Canada Thistle, even older plants, the cheap 2-4-D mixes have worked fine for me. Adding a bit of TORDON does heat it up though.

quote:

Originally posted by YellowJacket:
A few possibilities:
Strawberry
Buttercup
Groundsel
Ragwort

There was a small patch of strawberries when we bought the house in 1980 but I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than one strawberry that was smaller than a thimble. These do resemble that. Maybe tomorrow I’ll look a little closer at where those plants were when we bought the house. If it is strawberries, I had no idea they could spread like that.

Buttercup. I do have lots of little yellow flowers, but I’ve never given them a second thought. Just mowed the lawn, but when those flowers grow back, I’ll dig one up.

Strawberries and buttercup seem to be the two most likely of all mentioned in this thread. I’ve pulled weeds every year and I can’t remember ever seeing roots like these before. The entire back yard has them and even the front yard has them. I appreciate all the responses. I need to make a positive ID on these plants before I consider what to do about them.

quote:

Originally posted by recoatlift:
Creeping Charlie.

I may have some of that. I’ve got so much junk growing in the yard, it would not surprise me to find out my yard is nothing more than weeds that I mow. I’ll be doing a more thorough inspection in the yard tomorrow.

Well, I’ve investigated every plant mentioned in this thread and none seem to be what I have. This morning I found some that had spread from the grass to some bare dirt under a hedge.

In the photo below you can see the stringers going all over the place and sending new roots down. These stringers, or vines hug the ground and can not be seen in the grass unless you get hold of one and pull it out.



In the photo below you can see that the roots are fairly shallow, but not easy to dig up.



I’m still clueless as to what this is. I can't recall seeing flowers on these things.

Take a plant to your county weed and pest office; I don’t know that one. Stolons run on the surface, rhizomes underground. I,can see why you would be concerned about it.

Well, it may be time to try to kill it with fire.

You can buy a Propane Weed Burner just about everywhere.

I'm acquainted with a Commercial full time Organic Gardener who sells his produce at retail and wholesale, this is the trick he has taught me. He does this often, to kill the weeds, so that he does not have to use chemicals. His produce is beautiful and healthy.

In his words, "Burn the weed and burn every square inch of dirt in my garden beds". (This is also his trick for not having problems with squash bugs and squash vine borers).

I don't know your climate, we don't want to cause a wild fire, so be careful if you can do this. I'd keep a water hose running full blast within reach while burning, no wind, etc.

Just internet search "Propane Weed Burner".

Good luck to you.

EDIT to add: You should watch some YouTube videos on this to see if it may be safe and work for your situation.
.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
Take a plant to your county weed and pest office; I don’t know that one. Stolons run on the surface, rhizomes underground. I,can see why you would be concerned about it.

I hadn’t thought about that. I’ll dig a fresh one up when I have the time and take it to the county extension office. I’ve noticed these weeds a lot, but never knew about all those vines buried in the grass till the other day.