Crabgrass? You Must Be Nuts…

The beginning of June in Montgomery Country is a magical time of year.  The kids are quickly approaching the end of their school year, families take their first trip down the shore and enjoy their first of many slices of Manco and Manco’s pizza, and the Phillies usually break .500.  While all seems picture perfect from Elkins Park to Pottstown, your lawn is looking forward to having a wild and crazy summer too. Much like your house in the summer, your lawn will be visited by some unexpected guests.  No, not your son’s ten fraternity brothers who decided to crash, I’m talking about Yellow Nutsedge and other weedy grasses.  These visitors are not technically broadleaf weeds, and certainly don’t confuse them for crabgrass which may also have a spot in your lawn if not treated with a pre-emergent in the spring.  

You really can’t miss Yellow Nutsedge.  It stands out from the grass almost immediately after mowing.  It is a light yellow-green color and the grass blades look like almost like a palm tree.  At full growth, they will easily surpass the height of your typical blends such as fescue and Kentucky blue grass.  This weedy, undesirable grass can be easily pulled from the lawn, however its abundance makes for a very unpleasant Saturday afternoon if you decide to manually remove each and every blade of grass. 

Nutsedge is easy to identify as it quickly grows taller than the desirable grass in your lawn.

Since it is technically a sedge, weed control is virtually ineffective against it.  From our experience, there are very few products on the market that can effectively control Yellow Nutsedge, and all of these products have just become available to licensed lawn care companies and are not available to consumers, given their relatively early stages of development.  Your local lawn care company should carry one of the few brands that can control these nuisances.  

 - Contributed by Norristown native, Harry Bambi, Sales Supervisor