Crab grass

[Anonymous]

Our yard looks really bad now. The crab grass took over in an area where you can't mow and where there is normally no grass, just shrubs. The yard maintenance guys don't do anything about it. You'd think they would notice it's like 2 feet tall now. Do any yard companies actually know anything about plants besides grass? They weedwack but only the sidewalk and not anything I actually want weedwacked. I haven't had them weed because they might weed something that is a plant that I like. They don't seem to know the difference between weeds and not weeds.

[Anonymous]

Are you paying them to maintain the beds, or just the lawn? And are you sure it's crabgrass? Could be Japanese stiltgrass, which is much more troublesome.

[Anonymous]

no habla ingles

[Anonymous]

A lawncare company that I hired to do a general lawn and leaf cleanup, and pull weeds in my flower beds, completely cut my mature hydrangeas down to the ground. I was livid! They have grown back a little, but haven’t bloomed since.

Be very careful about the company you hire. Make sure that the person who gave you the price quote has communicated the scope of work to the crew. Schedule the work for a time when you can be home to supervise.

[Anonymous]

You may have to go to your local nursery and find some crabgrass killer that you feel comfortable with. Either spray it yourself, or tell your lawn maintenance person to apply it.

[Anonymous]

Here is an easy suggestion. Buy a lawn fertilizer with Dimension as its ingredient. Use it in the fall to prevent crab grass (which dies off in the winter) from re-emerging in the spring/summer next year.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/LESCO-50-lb-19-0-7-Dimension-Crabgrass-Preventer-080311/100185665

[Anonymous]

It might be Japanese stiltgrass. Does Dimension work on that too?

[Anonymous]

PP here. It probably is stiltgrass. Soon it'll go to seed and die. Imperative to pull it before it goes to seed. Otherwise it'll be back in force next year.

Dimension is a pre-emergent and early post-emergent. Stiltgrass seeds germinate all season, so you might have to apply a pre-emergent more than once. Personally I use Grass Beater or a similar sethoxydim-based grass-specific herbicide to kill stiltgrass outside of turf. After a few years of keeping after it, my stiltgrass eruptions in planting beds and under shrubs are scattered, not widespread.