Weed Grasses in Lawns
Annual Meadow Grass
Rye Grass
Yorkshire Fog
Rough Meadow Grass
Weed and rough grasses, like broad leaved weeds readily take advantage of weaknesses in your lawn. They are also well suited to loam or clay loam soils particularly as most are fairly neutral in acidity/alkalinity. This means keeping them out is impossible though once again a thick healthy turf will provide a very useful barrier.
All are in abundance in verges, fields and the countryside. Controlling them is only worthwhile in a few cases;
Annual Meadow Grass and Rye Grass
Annual meadow grass (medium green leaf with seed heads present all year round) and rye grass (darker green, leaves dull on top and shiny underneath with tall seed spikes or soldiers).
These make for reasonable lawns and may well go unnoticed in anything other than an ornamental lawn. Golf courses are full of them and are only controlled on greens by hand pulling young plants, regular vertical mowing (like fine scarifying) or renovation by deep scarifying and overseeding.
Yorkshire Fog
The next weed grass is Yorkshire Fog . A very broad soft pale green possibly bluey slightly hairy leaf mistakenly called ‘couch grass’ can be quite a problem because its broad leaves are more noticeable and it has a tendency to form clumps.
Not everyone is bothered by it but if you are then control by cutting out individual plants as they occur or replacing clumps with seed or turf. It is a very delicate grass and any form of abrasion (slash it vertically with a spade OR abrade it with a spring tine rake or scarifier) will weaken it. Unfortunately this can be a slow and laborious process so cutting out the grass is usually the best option. If clumps are particularly large then use glyphosate to kill it, remove the dead grass after a couple of weeks and re-seed.
Rough Meadow Grass
Finally, the worst of the weed grasses is the least common and easiest to sort. Also known as Rough Stalked Meadow Grass this grass forms dense clumps or ‘whorls’ of very rough stiff broad dark green grass.
It is very obvious in any lawn and should be removed as soon as it is spotted as the clumps will just get bigger. Small patches or individual plants can be pulled out, broken off or cut out with a knife and clumps can be replaced with new seed or turf.
Rough stalked meadow grass is also a useful grass for shady areas. However, this would be a variety that has had a little scientific breeding to make it a useful and reasonably attractive addition to your lawn. The ‘wild’ variety invading your lawn is ‘orrible stuff!
The incidence of the latter two grasses seems to have increased in recent years. There is some talk within the industry that this may be a consequence of more extreme weather with extended and unbroken periods of either rain or drought. Until we know for sure one way or the other keeping a healthy lawn will always help reduce weeds and weed grasses.
