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Killing Chic weed in St. Augustine

13 years ago

Greetings folks!

I used to have a bueatiful front yard full of healthy St Augustine. Then, about 4 years ago, a very large Poplar tree in my front yard was struck by lighting and died. Ever since that lighting strike, my yard has gone down hill. I have killed all the broad leaf stuff, but the chic weed (about 60 percent of the yard at this point( remains unscathed. How do I kill it without doing in the rest of the St. Augustine??? Thanks everyone!

Chris

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Comments (8)

botanicalbill
13 years ago
I know that 2,4-d will get rid of the chickweed in a blink of an eye. I would use that and then a few weeks later put a few peieces of SA in and let it spread, or resod.
sebastonz
13 years ago
Take note of the second sentence in bill's post, because you will Have to do that as 2,4-d will also kill the St. Augustine. You said its over 60% of your yard so...
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Do not use RU, SA is not Bermuda and does not ever go fully dormant like Bermuda. Sorry Dave but the only thing I know of that is effective and safe on SA for both pre and post emergence is atrazine. Now with that said if the Poa is small size like quarter sized patches here and there, you can use RU in a small spray bottle to kill it, but it would leave a dead spot to any SA it touched, and since Poa is so shallow rooted you be better off just popping it out of the ground.
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When you say 24-D, you must have meant 2-4-D, which is a broadleaf herbicide, not a fertilizer. From the pics, I see a couple of nutsedge (a weed) and a lot of Bermuda grass. You can get rid of the nutsedge w/ an herbicidde like Sledgehammer. Getting rid of the Bermuda though is gonna be tough. You could mow your St. Augstine at the highest setting and that will shade out and slow the spread of the Bermuda. I'm not aware of any herbicide that will kill Bermuda w/o killing everything else in your yard. If you could take a picture that showed a wider shot of the lawn, that might be more helpful to get a sense of what you're up against.
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rdaystrom
13 years ago
2, 4-D will kill the St. Augustine.
Use Atrazine on St. Augustine. It will kill the Chickweed.
dchall_san_antonio
13 years ago
2,4-d is worse on Floratam variety of St Aug. You might try it and see. There is Ortho Weed-B-Gone and Spectracide (in the black bottle). I believe they are different formulations of 2,4-d. I would try the Spectracide first and test it in a small area. Only use it on days when the temp will be less than 85.
rdaystrom
13 years ago
dchall_san_antonio, Why would you recommend a herbicide (2, 4-D) that specifically states not to use on St. Augustine? They do not delineate between the Flortam type and regular St. Augustine. Atrazine is easy to get and is commonly used on St. Augustine.
dchall_san_antonio
13 years ago
I was just reading the label for Ortho Weed-B-Gone for Southern lawns printed here. It says it is safe for St Augustine except Floratam.

Also there is this professor from Florida that states that the problem with 2,4-D is that it gets mixed with mecoprop and that the mecoprop does the damage to St Augustine. Scroll down to the third paragraph in the SpeedZone section near the bottom of the page.
botanicalbill
13 years ago
Yes, 2,4-d will kill St aug but you said 60% of the lawn is gone already. So im trying to save you money by killing the weed the cheapest way. your going to have to sod regaurdless.
chris_va
Original Author
13 years ago
Gents...

I have used Ortho for "southern lawns" and it did kill the broadleaf stuff. Atrazine cannot be obtained around here with out some kind of "chemical license", any other thoughts?

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