Maintaining a beautiful lawn and garden can be quite the tall task for a number of reasons. Often, the most difficult is DIY weed control for lawns.
5 Mistakes To Avoid: DIY Weed Control For Lawns
If you’re going to do it yourself, then you’ll want to avoid some bad (but common) habits that will work against you when attempting to claim your neighborhood’s best curb appeal or the backyard of your dreams. Remember, when in doubt hire a professional lawn care company.
Here are the top 5 mistakes homeowners make for DIY weed control for lawns.
This post breaks down:
- Spreading weeds
- Pulling weeds by hand
- Attacking weeds quickly
- Weeds and landscaping
- Weed Spraying
You’re in the right place to find out the top 5 mistakes to avoid when doing DIY Weed Control on your lawn.
1. Don’t mow over those weeds! You’ll spread seeds!
We’ve all been there: you’re mowing your lawn and you see a pesky dandelion taunting you from directly down your path.
What do you do? Well, of course, you run it over with the high-powered mechanical blade that you’re steering toward it.
But don’t fall into the trap! Mowing over the dandelion — and many other weeds — could cause countless more to sprout up.
If you are insistent on mowing over weeds in your yard, you must do it before they start to seed. But even that likely won’t kill the pests, rather it will only buy you time to get to the root of the problem.
2. You can dig weeds out by hand, but we suggest using a professional hand.
There are certainly tools that can make digging up unwanted weeds easier, but you can also hire a lawn care specialist to take care of the issue for you. Teams are highly trained to not only identify the weeds, but to take care of the problem for good.
If you intend to pull them out on your own, you should be using gloves because you can never be too sure what type of weed you’re about to pull.
Ground Cover
Using ground cover plants that look beautiful and plentiful can deter weeds from growing. They choke weeds out by their sheer ability to spread, keeping weeds from having any space to grow on their own.
3. The longer you put off weed control, the less control you’re going to have.
“I’ll get it later,” is perhaps the most common and understandable mistake a lawn lover can make. We all live busy lives, and it can be hard for homeowners to make weed control a priority.
You may plan to do it over the weekend, but new plans come up or the weather isn’t cooperative. Then it gets pushed to the next day, again and again.
Before you know it, the weeds have had time to grow, plant their roots and spread, and the small issue you originally had has grown exponentially. Instead, you should act as fast as you can when weeds appear.
4. Don’t forget about weeds when landscaping!
Weed control needs to be a major part of your landscaping plans.
Weed barriers can be an effective and relatively cheap tool used during most landscaping projects. Using a weed barrier now can help ensure you don’t have a mess on your hands later.
Do you know how much mulch to use for your project to avoid weed growth?
Do you know which plants will be most set up for success in which environments? If you aren’t confident in your answers, that’s when you’ll want to hire someone to handle the tough questions for you.
5. Don’t carelessly spray everything!
The urge to kill the weeds by simply spraying every unwanted growth in your garden or lawn can be tempting, but don’t cave to it!
The danger in sprays comes in a variety of ways for amateur gardeners. Is it too windy? Your spray could flow through the air into areas of your yard that you don’t plan on. Is it going to rain?
The chemicals could become ineffective or — worse — spread to other parts of your soil.
Weed killers stored in uncontrolled environments can become ineffective due to varying extreme conditions, both hot and cold.
Therefore, you may be spending your money on a method that is doing quite literally nothing, and then you’re back to square one! Not to mention that some sprays pose a personal health risk.
Homemade weed killer – Vinegar salt and dish soap
You can try to avoid the chemicals by making natural weed killers at home using a gallon of white vinegar, a bit of liquid dish soap, and 1 full cup of salt. This mixture of Acetic acid (from vinegar) makes it very difficult for weeds in your lawn to thrive. Be sure to get this mixture just right!
Add this mixture to a spray bottle and kill the plants where they grow.
Summary: 5 Mistakes To Avoid: DIY Weed Control For Lawns
There are a lot of things to watch out for in your yard, and weeds are just the start. You can always consult with a lawn care technician to take the stress off of you and give you a lawn you can be proud of.
- Don’t mow over weeds.
- Pull weeds out by hand or hire professional help to do so.
- Don’t put off weed control.
- Use a weed barrier for your lawn
- Beware of herbicides and avoid spraying anything but weeds
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