Our whole yard has been taken over by crab grass. I tried to keep up with it in our first summer here. And last summer, I managed for awhile, but the war was won towards the end of summer. This year, with a monsterbaby, I was ill-equipped to go to battle, so the crab grass happily inhabited all of our natural areas, and quickly our yard looked like we had abandoned our home.
We tried Round-Up. The crab grass laughed at us, and continued growing with little setback.
We tried some promising poison stuff. It killed everything in the natural area. Or so it seemed. The crab grass came back to life like a soap opera villain.
So, today, we gathered up the troops and mounted an attack. The plan was to dig up all plants that are currently (legally) residing in the natural area. (Note: part b of this part of the plan was to replant said plants, but as we speak they are sitting in the back yard suffocating). We then would weed whack down the crab grass and rake that out. Then, Derek would till up the whole area, thus exposing the roots and we would rake out this infrastructure. We'd smooth it all out, put landscape fabric down, cover with a hefty dose of mulch and have a nice, crab grass free environment for planting in the Spring.
Everything went ok. We weed whacked and raked. Then, Derek tilled. The network of roots was only slightly disrupted. You see, crab grass roots apparently go down to the core of the earth. There was no amount of raking or pulling that was going to clean out this natural area. Because the amount of work needed to get out those roots was enormous, we switched gears and decided that we would just cover the area with fabric and mulch and hope for the best. Unfortunately, at this point, we were spent and we didn't have any pins to hold down the fabric, so we called it quits.
Right now, I imagine the crab grass generals are huddled in their bunkers planning a vicious counterstrike, but beware crab grass - we are coming back next weekend, in full force, and you don't have a prayer.
Until next summer.
1 comment:
You should go to my blog and click on the link for Keetha's blog. They had crab grass problems, too, and if you go back a week or two, I think, you can see the developing stages. Unfortunately for us, all we have making our yard even a hint of green is the crab grass. :(
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