How high do you mow your grass, and how often do you water?

If you have a thick green lawn with few weeds in the spring and early summer, cultural practices could go a long way toward keeping the seeds at bay.

Seeds need frequent water to germinate, and the weeds need sunlight to grow.

If you mow your lawn at the highest setting on your lawn mower and only water once a week, the seeds won't have much of a chance to compete. If you keep your lawn short and water frequently, the weeds have nearly perfect conditions to thrive.

Can you give any more details on what the weeds look like? What kind of leaves do they have? Do they have any flowers? If so, what do they look like? Do you have any pictures, by any chance?

winterwolfes,

It would help if you could posibly post a photo of the weed... (I know that may be difficult now as it is February).

I know it seems crazy, but my parents live in South Jersey along the Delaware Bay and they have a similar problem. Their issue it seems, surprisingly, is with Bermuda Grass.

I always keep my mower at the highest setting and I water only once a week, if the grass needs it. I am pretty good about that kind of stuff.

I'll take a look to see if I can spot any of this out there now. Though I may also have a picture of it from last year. I will check when I get home - at work now. It doesn't rear its ugly head until around august and when it does it just takes over. It comes up in the same places every year.

Basically it grows low to the ground and spreads out runners. There are no flowers on it. Each arm or leg or whatever you want to call it has little oval shaped green leaves that shoot out on from both sides up the whole arm. The arms or legs themselves are almost a reddish color sometimes. It grows up as a little clump and then spreads. When I pull it up the legs are sort of rooted down sometimes like runners.

The thing is that this takes over high areas of my lawn, but when they die back in the winter, there don't seem to be bare spots from them because my lawn is pretty thick and like I said this weed is fairly low growing. Purslane maybe?

I'll check for pictures tonight. Its so discouraging to work so hard all year and then by august to have the lawn just taken over in the front yard.

The only thing organic I've found useful for broadleaf weeds over time is to mow maple leaves into the lawn and garden every year. Something in maple leaves act like an herbicide against broadleaf weeds.

I'm surprised this fact hasn't been more publicized over the years. It's been known for a long time.