I have a "cluster" grass that is growing in my yard. I would like to kill it but I don't know what it is called. I have attached pictures. One picture has a quarter placed in the grass for size. It grows in a cluster and has seed as shown in one of the pictures.
a clearer picture of the flowers are needed for an ident (not sure why you need to know his name before you kill him though)
hehehehe, i guessed that :D mowing regime can help control less favourable grass species, the more often you mow, the finer grasses will flourish and the courser grass will deteriorate. maybe a poa possibly annua http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=POAN
I don't understand your answer. I would like a common name so I can find a weed killer that will handle it. Cutting the lawn short will not work because it has taken over a section of my lawn and it is the only thing growing there.
Poa annua = Annual Meadow-grass (and yes, it does look like that). As for killing it - a hoe will do the job as well as anything, with much less damage to the environment than a weedkiller.
Annual bluegrass is short-lived and favored by surface compaction, such as occurs on paths and in lawns. Spraying it after it has already reached flowering stage, will soon be giving off seeds is kind of a waste of time and herbicide (popular glyphosate, for instance, is rather expensive to be spraying on annual weeds). Improving soil conditions might be best long-term control.
I've never seen it in a meadow, so I guess that common name is no good either then. Wait a minute: genus Poa is known collectively as bluegrasses...Hey! Calling it annual bluegrass is consistent afterall!
There are several meadows (wild) near to Spokane that have a lot P. annua in them and if you forget to mow for a month or so, you will see the dark blu-ish tint to the flowers. The latter might have to be in the right year if only seeded once. So I will accept both common names, but then I'm easy and not always correct. :) Harry
Is that the same thing as Quick Grass? Thats a common name of a grass in our area that looks alot like that? Im just a noob though so don't just take my word
Common names of plants are never 'correct' anyway, unlike botanical names having no technical application. That's why the binomial system was developed in the first place. Common names exist outside of science, are given a life of their own. If enough people keep calling dragon arum (Dracunculus) "voodoo lily" then that will become one of its common names, that should be listed as such in comprehensive works.
In response to Ron: We plant a lot of Kentucky Bluegrass for lawns, but I thought bluegrass was a non-clustered grass.
if you are trying to figure a selective plant killer to target that particular grass... it doesnt really work that way. with the consumer plant killers there are usually two types; 1) selective, kills most things other than grass. and 2) non selective, kills most things. you can spot spray with a glyphosate product then re seed but the best control is as mentioned, cultural. Aerate, mow higher and water differently may be all you need to do to lessen the impact of this undesirable grass.
More watering I would expect to encourage it. As always, it depends. If more watering would make the lawn grass fill in and exclude it, then it would make sense to water more. That said, my uncle fought this species in his consistently irrigated, dampish lawn for years--it was quite successful growing between the lawn grasses and below the mowing height.
