Help,grass/weed taking over my lawn!?!?!

Question

I have a wide blade weed, that looks like like grass, but a heavy wide leafed variety, and it is a creeper/speader type. It is lighter in color than the regular grass.

I have tried Scotts weed & feed, as well as a few other types to get rid of it, but nothing has worked. Can anyone help me with something that will kill this? My neighbors lawn has been completely taken over by it.

I don't want to lose my lawn.

Answer 1

It sounds like crabgrass. You will have to get crabgrass killer to get rid of it if it is crabgrass.  Regular weed killers won't kill crabgrass.  I posted a picture of crabgrass. If this is what you have you will need to ask your local garden store for crabgrass killer. When you buy a weed killer make sure it says it will kill crabgrass too or purchase a straight crabgrass killer. This will kill the crabgrass but will not harm your lawn grass.

In order to keep crabgrass from getting into your yard cut your grass high. Keep it at about 3 inches or so after you cut. This will keep the crabgrass out of your lawn for the most part. But you will have to kill the existing crabgrass first.  Once you have done this then fertilize your lawn and water well.  Let the grass grow to 4-5 inches tall and then cut it to about 3 inches.  Crabgrass has a difficult time growing in a higher cut lawn.

Answer 2

Try Weed Be Gone that works pretty well, or you could use Round Up except that will kill the grass too, so go with the Weed Be Gone

Answer 3

We had a similar problem, we tried various lawn weed killers.  Unfortunately it's the expensive task of keep trying till one works.  I can't remember the name of the one that finally did the trick on our lawn (not helpful I know) but it was in a very small red box which I added to the watering can b4 spraying the entire lawn when weather was dry, we then sprinkled grass seed(£1 in Wilko's!!) over the lawn during a wet period - I'm sure if you went to a good garden centre they'll be able to recomend the best one for your problem.

Answer 4

Sounds like rye grass. We had something similar and the only thing that sorted it was CONSTANT mowing. Hard work I know but worth a try. You could always try asking a Lawn Maintenance Company to give their opinion. That would cost you initially but save in the long run because you wont be wasting money on products that dont work. Best of luck.

Answer 5

Most weed n' feed products control "broadleaf weeds" and do not touch "grassy weeds".   It's important to read the label of these products so that you don't apply chemicals where they aren't needed.  If your lawn didn't have broadleaf weeds like: dandelions, clover, daisies, chickweed, then you wasted your $$$ and applied chemicals into the environment.

Here's what you do:

In order to find out what chemical we need to buy to we need to properly identify the weed.  That would be the best thing to post on this site- a photo of your problem weed.  

Most likely CRABGRASS?  

Go find someone at your local garden center who can recommend an herbicide for crabgrass and other "grassy weeds".

NO weed-b-gone!  Thats for broadleaves TOO!  (where do these people get there info?)

Also, use a pre-emergent+ fertilizer next spring and what ever crabgrass you got this year will not resprout next summer.  (put it on the calendar!)