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merlcat

Ortho grass-b-gone and Moss garden with crabgrass

merlcat
13 years ago

I'm wondering if anyone here has had any experience with Ortho grass-be-gone. Or, ortho grass-b-gon, as I think the bottle is labeled.

I've been nurturing moss gardens for almost 15 years on two different properties. Now I have moss that has been infiltrated with crabgrass. I never had a crabgrass issue before. I think the lawn guy brought seeds in from his mower late last year as I began to see it in the late summer and fall around the border of a couple sections.

Some must have gone to seed and now it is germinating. I would like to save my moss areas, but hand pulling is pretty problematic in this situation. I normally always hand pull grass and weeds with great luck. Pulling the crabgrass may be doing more harm than good though, especially if the seeds are germinating anyway. I see the tiny shoots and they are numerous. Spread further than I would have thought, too.

One of the reps at my garden center felt strongly that the grass-b-gon would not kill the moss, but did not know for sure. She said I could test it and if it does kill the moss I could bring it back. Problem is that the grass be gone takes some time to work and I am fuzzy on how long it would take to see results. I have very little experience with herbicides. I have only used roundup as a last resort to get rid of the last remains of goutweed that I pretty much eradicated over a summer of digging up roots.

I did spray a small tuft of crabgrass in the moss with the grass be gone, but would prefer to get some more input so that I can try to decide if I should just start round-upping the worst area and re start the moss or continue with hand pulling or dig out entire sections trying to not spread crabgrass seeds (Ha !) Thing is,if the stuff comes back from roots left over, maybe spraying grass be gone is best. What to do bfore the problem gets bigger??

The grass be gone area seems unchanged after 24 hours as far as I can tell, but I don't really know what to expect. I also tested a dime size area of moss in the yard w/ roundup, which turned brown within hours.

I'm not really clear if hand pulling is the best way as I am not sure if crabgrass will re-grow even with minimal roots left in the ground. as far as the new shoots germinating, perhaps I should fully spray with grass be gone, but if it takes weeks to see improvement (crabgrass death) it might not be worth the wait only to find it did kill the moss.

So, mossers, any thoughts on Ortho's grass be gone? I'd be interested in any input about the product or advice in general. Thanks!!

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