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You work hard to keep your Hutto property beautiful. You lay out a thin layer of mulch to keep your gardens safe while setting off your flowers with just the proper contrast. You keep your lawn green and thick to evoke a thick carpet whose only competition for greenness is the neighbors' envy. And then, what's that? Is that weed!? Weeds have a way of getting around. But post emergents allow us to combat those that breach our protective walls! While weeds aren't inherently wrong (they're just a flower growing in the wrong place), they aren't desirable for our landscapes, and our job at Progreen is to keep your property precisely how you want it. So here's how we do it!
Start With a Healthy Lawn
Weeds love many of the same things that your grass does. They need water, soil, and sunlight. Sound familiar? Because of their similar needs, they compete for the same resources. So the best way to have a weed-free lawn is to find the differentiators your lawn likes that weeds don't and promote your lawn health. That's the perfect start.Irrigation
Progreen is a proponent of irrigation. It's one of the most important things you can do for your yard to keep your plants healthy. Now you may be asking, but don't weeds need water too? How does that help? It's a good question. Of course, weeds need water too, but when your lawn is healthy, it's more difficult for weeds to find a weak spot to find a home. The perfect amount of water meted out through irrigation systems creates a healthy lawn that's harder for weeds to invade.
Lawn Treatments
The other way to keep your lawn healthy is through lawn treatments. These treatments serve various functions, from adding good things to preventing bad ones.Fertilizer
Fertilizer is one of the main ways you can make your soil less hospitable to weeds. Some nutrients are great for grass but might not be as helpful to their competitors. Even those that like the same things have a more challenging time finding a space to call home when your grass is too thick to allow them in.Prevention
The other lawn treatment is the prevention of what you don't want, like pests and weeds. We spray pest prevention for the most common grass-eating bugs like chinch bugs, army worms, and grubs. Why is pest prevention relevant for weeds? It's because when weeds make your grass unhealthy, weeds seize the opportunity. More directly, we spray preemergents to prevent weeds. Not to be confused with post emergents, pre-emergents prevent weeds. They target plants in the pre-blooming cycle (hence the "pre").Prevention Is Preferable but Imperfect
With all that good stuff, you may wonder how weeds ever have a chance to grow! Well, they're tenacious little buggers. And the fact is preemergents don't work in all situations. For example, you can't use preemergents anywhere you're trying to grow something new because it will prevent their growth along with the weeds. So in those situations, as well as those when weeds otherwise find a way, you must eliminate weeds that have already arrived by killing them with pulling or post emergents.The Problem with Pulling
While pulling weeds can sometimes be a desirable form of weed control, it has two problems. First, in some situations, it can cause weeds to spread, and it is labor intensive.
Some weeds produce more weeds when you pull them either by sending a signal in their route systems or from the seeds that blow off as you pull them (ala dandelions). Also, if you have many weeds, then it's time-consuming and back-breaking work!