Weeds and Diseases

Weeds

These fall into four main categories

Annual weeds            These normally appear in new sown lawns and will disappear with mowing.

Perennial weeds        These are ones such as docks. They appear in all lawns and mowing will not eradicate them. They need either to be dug out or sprayed off.

Coarse Grass weeds       This is ones such as couch grass. Weedkillers will not control them. The only effective way is to cut out the roots and pull them out.

Moss                             This is the most common of problems. It will come in if one of the following factors happens. Lack of fertilser, poor drainage, shade, compaction, lime shortage, too much topsoil. First try and see which of these factors may be causing it and correct them. You can also use moss weed killers.

Diseases

There are two common diseases of lawns.

Fusarium                     It can appear at any time. Autumn is the most likely period. Areas from anywhere from an inch to a foot in diameter turn brown. If this happens you can treat the patch and the surrounding areas with a liquid fungicide.

Corticum (red thread)      This normally appears on dry, sandy soil when there is shortage of nitrogen. Appears in late summer or autumn in small patches, which can spread rapidly. It appears as tiny, thin, red needles coming out from the dead grass . Again you need to treat the patches and the surrounding area with a liquid fungicide. Then apply lawn sand in the spring.