Why Some New Lawns Can Develop Weeds

Why Some New Lawns Can Develop Weeds
By Steven Garrett

The laying of a new lawn is usually a time of happiness and pride for many people. A new lawn really does look spectacular after its installed and now has pride of place in our yards, framing our lawns and gardens with natural green beauty. However, for some people these times of happiness can quickly be eroded away as the new sod is overcome with weeds. Leaving the homeowner bewildered as to how these weeds got into the sod and why they seem to be overtaking the new lawn.

There are some simple answers to this perplexing question, and the cause of the problem is not a single one, but rather a combination of factors which all contribute at the same time to cause a mass of new weeds in a new home lawn.

Initially the homeowner will of course be upset, and the very first place to point the finger is at the sod farm, with the reasoning that the new sod must have left the farm full of weeds. We can say confidently that this is highly unlikely. Sod farms are professional businesses who must supply a product of the highest quality, or otherwise risk going out of business. So these farms will have very strict controls on weeds and diseases at the farm. Which then ensures only turf of the highest quality ever gets sold. So lets take our focus off the sod farmers.

Now we're on the right track, and a little bit of logic will give us our answers.

If we have weeds in our new lawn, then they were grown from weed seeds. So we must ask ourselves where these weed seeds came from. Firstly, let look at our own yards first, and remember what was in our lawn area before the new sod was laid. If the lawn area was left neglected for some time before the new sod was laid, and had weeds present, then we can now see that it was those weeds which implanted seeds into our lawn soil prior to the new sod being laid.

Alternatively, if the lawn area was clean and weed free prior to the installation of the new sod, then we can look around at the nearby yards in our immediate area. If we can see there are yards full of weeds nearby, then it is also logical that seeds were dispersed into our turf area from these sources.

Weeds often put out masses of seeds, and these weed seeds can last up to 10 years in the soil before ever germinating. A percentage of these seeds will germinate each year, creating new weeds, with each generation waiting under the soil for the perfect time to spring forth.

So now we've found the true source of our weeds, and why they were waiting for so long hidden under the soil, we must now work out why so many weeds suddenly sprang forth when we put in our new sod. This too is very easy to understand with just a little more logic.

What did we change when our new turf was first laid? Well of course we immediately began to apply masses of water to get the sod established, and we may have put down a little fertiliser to help with the growth of the new lawn. In doing so, we created optimum growing conditions for our turf, which is great, but we also just created perfect growing conditions for all those thousands of weed seeds underneath the lawn, which were previously hidden in the soil.

All that wonderful lawn care was just what all those weed seeds have been waiting years for, perfect growing conditions for their survival, at which point we find that the majority of these seeds suddenly all germinated under these peak growing conditions. And as a result, filled our beautiful new lawn will ugly weeds.

So we can now see why some new lawns get infested with weeds so quickly after installation. Of course we can minimise some of these problems from occurring by properly killing all weeds in the area to be turfed before the new sod is laid, however this will not cure the problem entirely.

Once a new lawn is laid, and if it becomes filled with weeds, we must wait until the turf is fully established and healthy before any weed treatments can be undertaken, otherwise we risk damaging the new turf. Instead, we can mow regularly during the establishment phase, which will control many of the weeds from re-seeding, while keeping the lawn looking clean and tidy. Once the lawn is healthy and established properly, we can then look at using weed sprays to remove the weeds completely from our beautiful new home lawns.

Steven Garrett is a turf professional with over 10 years experience in the field of lawn care. With these many years of experience, backed up by training and ongoing research. Steve now shares his knowledge with readers on The Lawn Guide, including top turf reviews such as the Empire Zoysia Review, as well as the ever popular article Palmetto Versus Sapphire, plus many more original lawn care topics for homeowners wanting a beautiful home lawn.

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