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That was probably me Paul. We had this problem in one of our lawns Paul - we thought the infestation may have come from birdseed as we don't have it anywhere else. It is only a small back lawn, but last year I decided to tackle it. I strung out 2 string lines 3ft apart, got on my foam kneeler and worked my way down and then across the lawn with a little pot of roundup and 10mm artist brush, dabbing the centre of each plant!
I'm a huge fan of applying neat glyph with a paintbrush. This is 600 metres square, and I'm 48 and arthritic! Lol...
I'm fast thinking this is going to be a complete new lawn..Just thought it was worth asking in case Louise or Ollie come back with "try our new product, Carex-ex. Destroys carex in lawns in one hit". :-)
The birdseed suggestion is great, as my next question would be that there's no obvious sign of plants nearby, so where did it come from.
Colins got it right - get it early before it spreads! Nailvarnisy brushes with neat glyph in are incredibles effective, and applying it neat in tiny amounts too - makes it very effective.
I tended to just use a pots worth on the boggy lawn that was in, did it twice in a year and they were gone.
Other option is lob loads of high N down and scalp the lawn.... Looks rough for 2 3 weeks but the carex doesnt like High N levels and withers as its out competed by the grasses.... THats the usual approach if its in rough pasture / obviously DO not do that if its a domestic lawn!
Thanks, David. My instinct would have been that the carex was tougher, so would relish being fed and get even worse. I'm feeding and over-seeding the lawn anyway, so that's reassuring.
carex is pretty tough, but its adapted to crappy, damp, not very fertile (in N) conditions by water courses and wetter areas....which means removing those conditions make it easier to outcompete for the normal lawn grasses - so improve drainage and fertility to slow carex down and speed up the lawn grass
Couldn't get better!
This is a lawn with underground streams, a failed soakaway, and despite drains being put in is wet and spongy in the driest times. The only good sign is it's heavy clay, and very fertile.
I'm learning a lot, which is a good thing.
Paul, there are a couple of options which may be worth looking at. You can get quite good control of certain grass species if the grass is mown quite short the night before a sharp frost. I have done this before for removing brome out of a rye mix & it probably did 50-60% control. Of course, it does eventually come back though.
You can spray certain grass species out of a lawn, but it depends on which species you want to keep & which you want to kill. If its a Fescue or meadow grass mix then you could look at 'Rescue (45g/l pinoxaden)'. This is not a cheap option but it may be your only one. rough cost would be £290/1L ex VAT. This would remove grasses such as Rye, yorkshire fog & some bents.
Your second option would be to use a product called Ethosat 500. This contains 500g/l ethofumisate and is widely used on sugar beet. It can be used on ryegrass, timothy, cocks foot & some fescues. It can offer very good control on a range of grasses such as annual meadow grass. Rough cost of this would be around £135/5L ex VAT.
Both of the above products have nto been tested on this particular grass species so i am unsure exactly what it would do, i just thought i'd give you a few options to help with your train of thought.
Let me know if i can be of any more assistance. Cheers Ollie
This sounds interesting Ollie. We seem to have quite a few patches of soft light coloured grass that spreads out, invading some of our lawns. Would the above work here? 20 years or so ago, my turf grower gave me a powder substance that we mixed with water that cleaned up turf nicely. No idea what it was, only that it worked!
Colin, it could have been anything 20 years ago. The number of products has reduced significantly. Before i can tell you definitively, i need to know the species of the grass you want to kill, and the species of the lawn. Please see the attached identification chart below. (sorry about the quality i scanned it).
Been thinking about this and come up with a solution...sort of.
Although the Carex family includes sedge & rush - which is susceptible to MCPA there is nothing licensed for knapsack use that has high enough load to kill (if it even works) .
If you can isolate the infestation into patches -then mow as low as you can AROUND the patches and use a weedwiper tool (rope wick) for high load glyphosate to drag across the carex standing proud of the lawn - saves the bending over/ nail varnish brush approach..?
Richard @ Progreen
www.progreen.co.uk
(01778) 394052