What is Crabgrass and How Can You Prevent It?

You are in the middle of a hot and humid summer when you are looking out over your lawn. You notice these spiky patches that seem to stick out like a sore thumb amongst the rest of your grass. Crabgrass is likely the culprit. This pesky weed thrives in the heat and can be quite persistent if not dealt with properly. Although there are some methods to dealing with crabgrass once it has already set in, the best method of dealing with crab grass is prevention.

What is Crabgrass?

Crabgrass is a weed with thick spiky blades that spread out from a center stem in a crab like configuration. Unlike your lawn, crabgrass thrives in dry, hot environments, meaning these weeds tend to rear their ugly heads as temperatures increase during the summer. If left unattended crab grass can quickly spread with each bundle releasing up to 150,000 seeds. These seeds can lie dormant in the soil for up to 15 years.

What Leads to Crabgrass?

Crabgrass has the ability to take hold when there are thin or bare patches of your lawn. These patches allow sunlight to reach the soil, causing the crabgrass seeds to germinate. Additionally, poor soil can also allow for crabgrass to take root. Compacted soil or nutrient deficiencies can hurt your grass, which creates more space for the crabgrass to grow. Crabgrass can also thrive in compacted soil and in a wide variety of pH levels, whereas your lawn cannot. The poorer the condition of your lawn, the more likely crabgrass can pop up.

How to Treat Crabgrass?

You might wonder, once crabgrass pops up what can you do? For small infestations hand pulling is a good way to combat the crabgrass. To make it easier to pull, do so after rain or a heavy watering so that the soil is loose. When weeding, it is important to make sure you don’t just pull off the leaves and leave the roots behind, allowing for it to grow back. For larger infestations, you can treat the crab grass with herbicides, but make sure to use one that will not also kill your grass. The best method of treating crabgrass is prevention.

How to Prevent Crabgrass?

Seeding

One of the best ways to prevent crabgrass is to take action in the fall. Since bare and thin spots of your lawn are where crabgrass is most likely to emerge, seeding these spots in the fall is one of the best ways to prevent crabgrass next spring.

Aeration

Another great way to prevent crabgrass is to aerate your lawn. Since crabgrass can thrive in compacted soil while your lawn cannot, aerating allows your lawn to stay healthy and crowd out any potential crabgrass.

Water Your Lawn

Watering your lawn deeply is another way to prevent crabgrass and keep your lawn healthy. Crabgrass thrives in drier conditions, whereas your lawn does best with ample watering. By keeping your lawn happy and healthy, it will crowd out the crab grass. But if your lawn goes dormant, that is when crabgrass seeds have access to enough nutrients and sunlight to take root and overpower your lawn.

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Perennial Landscape Corporation

The Quality You Expect and the Service You Deserve

Perennial Landscape Corporation is a family-owned business creating distinguished landscape environments in Winchester, Concord, Lexington, Andover and surrounding Massachusetts areas since 1995.

Perennial Landscape Corporation was named after the category of plants called perennials. Perennials are plants that have a lifespan of two or more years, meaning they come back each year. Just like a perennial, our aim is for you to be able to count on us year after year.

Here at Perennial, we pride ourselves on providing excellent landscaping services and outstanding customer service. Our motto is ” the quality you expect and the service you deserve”. That is the mindset that permeates every aspect of our work.