Weed Control on your Florida Lawn

This is the time of year when our soil warms back up above 60 degrees Fahrenheit. In order to control weeds in our lawns, we need to treat them with pre-emergent herbicides. What many homeowners don’t realize is there is no single pre-emergent herbicide product available which will treat all the common weeds in our Florida lawns. Scott’s Weed & Feed is a good product, but it simply won’t do the job.

Weed Prevention

First, you should understand there is no prevention for most broadleaf weeds like dandelion or clover. We’ll talk about treatment for these types of weeds in a future blog.

Pre-emergent herbicides help to “prevent” problem weeds from establishing; in other words, they are designed to prevent seeds from germinating, and they need to be applied as soon as the soil temperatures are a consistent 60 degrees Fahrenheit but simply applying a pre-emergent alone is not enough to control weed growth.

The Right Combination

The key to a weed-free lawn is a strong pre-emergent coupled with a targeted post-emergent program. As mentioned above, pre-emergent herbicides will not prevent many broadleaf weeds like dandelions or clover, so we need other strategies to deal with those.

Common Florida Weeds

We deal with many weeds in our warm-season, Florida grasses such as crabgrass, poa annua, pusley, nutsedge, doveweed, sandspur, and hairy bittercress are our most common problems. These weeds attack St. Augustine, Bermuda, Zoysia, Centipede and Bahia lawns. Some weeds like Florida pusley germinate all year so suppressing this weed is an on-going task.

Our Proven Method

The quality of the pre-emergent herbicide is critical in preventing and controlling weeds. Here at 360PestControl, we rely upon two proven herbicides to control weeds in our customers lawns, dithiopyr and s-metolachlor. Each must be carefully applied at the right time and in the right dosage. The cost of herbicides has risen along with the costs of fertilizer but if you are going to control weeds in your lawn, we have to deal with higher costs.

Buyer Beware

There is no substitute for a quality driven weed prevention program. Homeowners should be skeptical of those selling a “spray & pray” program where every lawn they service gets the same treatment. It simply does not work. These companies sell a lower fee to attract homeowners and really what they concentrate on is over-fertilizing to keep your turf green (they hope you don’t notice the weeds). If you see the big truck with a big tank moving down the street, you’ll know that every single lawn is being treated the same regardless of what it actually does need. If you see 3 big trucks with different names on them, chances are they are owned by the same corporation, and they are all treating with the same chemicals, every yard, whether it needs this or not. It’s a numbers game to these folks.

Your Trusted Provider

If you want a quality program with a strategy to treat your specific lawn or ornamentals, give us a call.

360PestControl provides lawn & ornamental services, along with residential pest control and termite treatment, to our clients in Jacksonville, Fleming Island, Orange Park, Green Cove Springs, Maclenny, St. Johns, Oakleaf Plantation, St. Augustine, and more. Contact us today at (904) 637-1109 or request service online today.