you can RU the whole lawn if you want, but do NOT till it up afterwards as it will just bring weed seeds close to the surface. don't use any type of pre emergence herbicide if you plan on reseeding either, as it will kill your grass seed as well.

Thank you for the quick response.
So, do I need to just scoop up the dead lawn/weeds with a shovel? What kind of shovel? How deep do I dig it up? Please excuse my ignorance... I am very early in the learning process.

Please wait. Did you read the messages that say over and over again, "do not seed in the spring, wait until fall?"

There are several reasons for this. A big one is that any grass you plant now will not have strong enough roots to make it through summer. Then in the fall you will have a full crabgrass lawn and have to redo the entire yard again.

Instead try this.

1. Set your mower to the highest position and mulch mow. The dandelions are a dead give-away that your grass is too short. Even if you have dandelions seeds sprout, tall grass provides too much shade for the tender little dandy's to mature. When you get ready to seed after the summer heat breaks, then you can lower your mower and scalp it. But you might not need/want to. Read on.

2. Adjust your watering program to reduce the frequency and increase the time/amount of watering. I am currently watering my lawn once every 2 weeks. When I water I water for 1-3 hours per zone and my zones overlap by 50%. By the time the summer heat is really here, I will be watering once a week.

3. Fertilize regularly with the fertilizer of your choice. I fertilize with an organic fertilizer on the federal holidays. If you want to use a synthetic fertilizer, you can follow the same schedule but skip the 4th of July app. Most grasses are borderline dormant in the heat, so that would be a waste of fertilizer.

After all your grass is all the way up to your mower's highest setting, then reevaluate your weed situation. It will be different than it is now. Some (all?) of the weeds will be gone (but maybe some won't). For the remaining broadleafed weeds, the best chemical spray is weed-b-gone. Spot spray the individual weeds rather than spreading a granular herbicide. The spot spray does the least damage to your little ecosphere. Round up has other uses. I'm not sure how it came to be used for everything? Marketing I guess.

If you follow this plan you might find in the fall that you don't need to do anything to your lawn. The total cost for what I've suggested is $0.00 for watering, $0.00 for mowing, and hopefully $0.00 for herbicide.

I wouldn't dig it up at all. If you can get a slit seeder to plant the new seed, do that. If not, you can use a power rake, dethatcher, or core aerator to increase the amount of soil that is exposed and help with seed-to-soil contact.

When are you planning to do this? The best time for you to seed would probably be sometime between mid August and early to mid September. If you seed now, you'll probably lose a lot of the new grass to the heat of the summer.

Thank you to everyone for the advice. I hate people to think this yard is any fault of mine. We moved in only 3 weeks ago.

dchall- I was planning on doing all you describe for my back lawn. There are weeds and a bit of crazy ground cover back there, but also plenty of grass. I have learned well reading all the past posts. Mow high, water deeply, but infrequently. got it.

The front yard is embarrassing. My hope for killing it is that it will allow me to start fresh 100%. I want to landscape it (shrubs, perennials, etc...) and then in August (yes, I read the posts) plan my reseeding of the portion I plan to grow lawn.

Of course, I will need all of your help to decide which grass seed is best, but that's for another thread.

For now, am I on the right path? Will round up kill it? and how quickly can I expect to be able to dethatch/dig the dead weeds/lawn? I'd love to have all the shrubs and perennials planted soon.

My thought is that if you have any acceptable grass right now, by caring for it over the summer, you avoid a lot of problems. If anything you do results in bare soil over the summer, you can expect weeds. Are you planning to mulch any bare soil you leave after killing the turf?

Round up will probably kill it. There are other grass killers.

Expect a lot of resprouting weeds from the half billion seeds in the soil. Preen might be a good idea this year in those new gardens.

Round Up what you want to turn into garden, and then till it when it dies.

OK, that's not very specific. In cooler weather, death can take a week. For sturdier weeds, even longer. If we get a warm snap, it can go in days. I saw noticeable fade in my old lawn in less than six hours, but I killed it in mid July.

You'll know, however. It'll be very obvious when it really starts to go. Round Up is only active until it washes into the soil, so planting can start immediately after tilling, and if that's a week, great.

You probably want to hit the lawn with Weed-B-Gone or something, do the best you can to control the weeds, feed and care for it over the summer, and either replace it in late August or overseed if it turns out to look fairly decent.

You all have been very helpful. I have decided to kill only what I intend to landscape. I will weed b gone the rest and just care for it properly over the summer until I can overseed in late summer.

Quick question...Do any of you have any experience with getting rid of ground ivy??

Quick question...Do any of you have any experience with getting rid of ground ivy??

Regrettably. It seems to require a flamethrower, Napalm, or Agent Orange, and none of those are completely reliable.

Use Round Up, but expect that you'll likely have to hit it twice, a week apart, and even then you may get a little back. If you do, take care of it immediately or it spreads like a wildfire.

If you keep tearing away the greenery or keep hitting it with Round Up, eventually it gets the idea and dies. It almost seems like the stuff can regenerate from the tiniest remaining root.

Can you be more specific about the ground ivy. That is a common term used for many different plants. Some of them are near impossible to eradicate and some are quite easy.

dchall-

It's either creeping charlie or Ground-Over the-Gill. I've read that they are all near impossible to get rid of.

It's either creeping charlie or Ground-Over the-Gill. I've read that they are all near impossible to get rid of.

Creeping Charlie responds pretty well to Weed-B-Gone...this is another instance where I've been there, done that, and bought the T-shirt. I tend to pull it in the gardens and it doesn't come back if you get it early enough. If you don't, just keep pulling it (or spray it once) and it goes away.

Ground-over-the-gill I've never heard of...and I'm probably glad.

The secret to killing ground ivy and similar perennial weeds is timing. Rutgers1 pointed this out last year and linked to a Michigan State U. study. November is the best time to kill Charlie, after the lawn top-growth has stopped but the roots are sucking in nutrients. I tried it in an area where my neighbors weeds were creeping over. One application, and in the Spring - No more Charlie.
Bill Hill

That is very good to know. I sprayed weed b gone this morning. I will mow either tomorrow or tuesday. If it doesn't help, I will take Bill's advice and do it again in november. I'm glad you shared this with me since I had not run across the study.

How soon should I start researching and purchasing lawn seed if I want to over seed in August/ September?

Just want to make sure I'm hearing this right. We have an acre. Grass is healthy. Scotts comes three times a year. Just came with weed & feed.

Problem is ground ivy and violets in the grass. Do I hear you that I should blast the leaves of these with Round-Up?
How often? Weekly? (Forevermore?)

I have a little optomism, having 'rounded-up' an infestation of Japanese knotweed -- but that was not IN the grass. (It did take many applictions to blast it.)

I'm 30 miles north of Chicago, near the lake

I there something other than Round-Up I could use?

There are several plants that go by the name creeping charlie, too.

chisue: Round-Up is a non selective herbicide. If you spray your yard with it, all the living plants will die. Have you pointed out the weeds to Scott's? Clearing the weeds is what you are paying them for.

For both of you, the common names you use in your area means different things to different people. Can you be more specific or post a picture so we aren't guessing.

OK, I was using the term the Scotts guy used: ground ivy. All along *I* thought they were violets. Guess what? They are violets!

It was easier to kill the knotweed because it was in a garden bed. The violets are spreading all through our nice lawn. How can I deter them without killing the grass?

I'm afraid Scotts isn't going to want to show up weekly to spend an hour spraying individual violets.

(I'm not keen on it either, but will do it if I know what to use.)