is scotts weed and feed safe when i have a dog?

8 years ago

what do i use to control weeds when i have a dog?

Featured Answer

dchall_san_antonio

8 years ago

The best weed control is proper cultural practices. The most important thing is having the correct grass for the situation. If you have a full sun grass planted in the shade, then no amount of care will prevent the grass from getting thin and weeds popping up. Assuming your lawn is appropriate for the location, then it comes down to caring for the lawn with proper watering, then mowing, then fertilizer. Here are the basics.

Basics of Lawn Care

After reading numerous books and magazines on lawn care, caring for lawns at seven houses in my life, and reading numerous forums where real people write in to discuss their successes and failures, I have decided to side with the real people and dispense with the book and magazine authors. I don't know what star their planet rotates around but it's not mine. With that in mind, here is the collected wisdom of the Internet savvy homeowners and lawn care professionals summarized in a few words. If you follow the advice here you will have conquered at least 50% of all lawn problems. Once you have these three elements mastered, then you can worry about weeds (if you have any), dog spots, and striping your lawn. But if you are not doing these three things, they will be the first three things suggested for you to correct.

1. Watering
Water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means at least an inch in every zone, all at once. Infrequently means monthly during the cool months and no more than weekly during the hottest part of summer. Do not spread this out and water for 10 minutes every day. If your grass looks dry before the month/week is up, water longer next time. If that does not work, then you might have to water more than once per week during the summer's hottest period. Deep watering grows deep, drought resistant roots. Infrequent watering allows the top layer of soil to dry completely which kills off many shallow rooted weeds.

You will have to learn to judge when to water your own lawn. If you live in El Paso your watering will be different than if you live in Vermont. Adjust your watering to your type of grass, temperature, humidity, wind, and soil type. It is worth noting that this technique is used successfully by professionals in Phoenix, so...just sayin.' The other factors make a difference. If you normally water 1 inch per week and you get 1/2 inch of rain, then adjust and water only 1/2 inch that week.

2. Mowing
Every week mulch mow at the highest setting on your mower. Most grasses are the most dense when mowed tall. However, bermuda, centipede, and bent grasses will become the most dense when they are mowed at the lowest setting on your mower. In fact there are special mowers that can mow these grasses down to 1/16 inch. Dense grass shades out weeds, keeps the soil cooler, and uses less water than thin grass. Tall grass can feed the deep roots you developed in #1 above. Tall grass does not grow faster than short grass nor does it look shaggy sooner. Once all your grass is at the same height, tall grass just looks plush.

3. Fertilizing
Fertilize regularly. I fertilize 5 times per year using organic fertilizer. Which fertilizer you use is much less important than numbers 1 and 2 above. Follow the directions on the bag and do not overdo it (unless you use organics in which case you may overdo it without fear of hurting anything).

At this point you do not have to worry about weed and feed products - remember at this point you are just trying to grow grass, not perfect it. Besides once you are doing these three things correctly, your weed problems should go away without herbicide.

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Comments (11)

forsheems
8 years ago
Most folks here do not recommend weed and feed type products for a few reasons. One being that you will be applying fertilizer at a time when you don't need to apply fertilizer. The second is that the conditions have to be near perfect for it to work. In order for it to work the grass and weeds must be wet in order for the product to stick to the leaves. Without this, it will do no good. Third, it will only kill certain weeds plus you're applying an herbicide to the entire lawn where spot treatment may be the best option.

To get the best results you really need to identify the weeds you are dealing with and choose the appropriate herbicide for those weeds. A cheap one or two gallon pump up sprayer will run you in the $20 range and a quart of concentrated herbicide will run you another $15 to $20 and will last a full season or longer depending on the size of your lawn. This also allows you to spot spray only the weeds so you will be saving money, and not dumping unneeded chemicals on the lawn all while achieving better results.

Now to answer your original question, I'm not sure how safe a weed and feed product is for your pets. I googled Scott's Weed and Feed and it didn't say anything. Most all of the concentrated sprays instruct you to NOT allow people or pets in the treated area until the spray has fully dried. The two most common herbicides I use are the regular Ortho Weed-B-Gon and the Weed-B-Gon Clover, Chickweed, and Oxalis killer. These two products will take care of roughly 90% of common lawn weeds. Generally when I spot spray weeds in my back lawn I won't let my dogs out there for a couple hours. With any herbicide product you should read the label and follow the instructions. Hope this helps.
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That might be the most perfect poster picture ever of one kind of bermuda invading the other kind. What you have is Tif 419. What the invader looks like is all the other bermuda - common bermuda. It looks like someone seeded the common into the Tif. The only way to get rid of the invader, if it is bermuda, is to kill the entire lawn. Does the invader get flowers on it a few days after mowing? Can you let the grass grow until it flowers and post a picture of the flowers? That will help to identify it. I don't think you can hurt bermuda with a weed n feed product. You wasted the herbicide, though, by not following directions. Don't feel bad. 99.999999999999999999% of everyone makes that mistake. Seriously. All the lawn forums tell people to just forget about weed n feed products because they won't work for most anyone. You don't get any herbicide and you don't get any fertilizer out of it. And besides, the weed you have would not be touched by the herbicide in a weed n feed. Those are more for clover, dichondra, oxalis, and other broadleaf weeds. In the future if you want to fertilize, use a fertilizer. If you want to kill weeds, use a herbicide. Don't mix the two and expect to get good results. Find the Bermuda Bible online and memorize it. This time of year you should be watering once per month unless you are catching up from a loooong dry spell like we are in Texas. I let mine go too long and am watering pretty deeply to get some moisture in the soil. Where do you live?
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Okay I'm in San Antonio and moving to Bandera. Hold off on the fertilizer unless you want to use an organic like alfalfa pellets or corn meal. If you've never seen those flowers then you don't have buffalo. Can you take a picture on a cloudy day from a height of about 3 inches. If the grass has flowers or tassels or anything on it, that would help. You have not used the really hard stuff, but then you did use 7x too much, so I'd let things rest for a couple weeks. Today's herbicides often don't show progress for at least a week. If you have St Augustine, for example, 2,4-D will kill it. Applying anything at 7x the rate would probably wipe out St Aug. St Aug is a very hardy grass, but one weakness is sensitivity to most herbicides. It's weird. Let's figure out what grass you have before going crazy with treating it. If you water the fertilizer in immediately after applying, it should not hurt a normal grass. The problem comes if you don't water it and then the morning dew creates a very salty solution that will kill most grass (but not usually St Augustine - weird). If you have a hand sprayer of Weed b Gon, you could spray those dandelion looking weeds. Just spray the leaves - don't drench the soil. They might be thistle, which looks very similar before it flowers. As for fertilizing the lawn, I'd just enjoy the bluebonnets for a couple more weeks.
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I've been on an organic program since 2002 and am not aware of an organic weed n feed. Furthermore had you asked about a chemical weed n feed, I would have discouraged you from using it. It's one of those products that sounds too good to be true. The problem with weed n feed products is the timing is off in two different time frames. In the big picture you need to kill weeds in April but the grass does not need its first fertilizer app until late May. On the small time frame, weeds die best when the are well fertilized. When you apply wnf, the herbicide tries to go to work right away but the weeds have not received the benefit of the fertilizer yet. If you want to apply a fertilizer, it's best to use a straight fertilizer. If you want to apply a herbicide, it's best to use a straight herbicide. Liquid herbicides are meant to be sprayed on the leaves of the weed and not applied as a soil drench. If you lightly mist the dandelions with something like Weed b Gon, you should not bother the soil microbes or worms.
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DO NOT OVERSEED. Why? Because, depending on what kind of grass you have, now is a very poor time of year to seed, or, there is no seed available for your turf. I'm looking at the label for a Scotts Southern Weed and Feed. The label is purple. Is that what you used? That product is ONLY for St Augustine and centipede lawns. If you have a bermuda lawn, then it's going to get worse before it gets better. And the damage is done, so you'll have to live with it this season. But if you have a St Augustine lawn, then the damage should repair itself in the next month or so. It also takes about 3 weeks before you see full weed control with this product (and with most herbicides). Now was not the best time to either use a herbicide or to fertilize. Those are two different things, and to think that one product can do both, equally well, at the same time, is a mistake. The time to kill weeds is in mid April. That is the time when all the weeds are up and growing. By using a post emergent weed killer now, you are likely missing the weeds that are just about to sprout. The time to fertilize is in late May. That is the time the normal fast spring growth is waning. By fertilizing now you force the grass to use up its stored nutrients faster so that by early May, the grass looks worn out. Let us know what kind of grass you have and we can help you plan out the future.
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danielj_2009
4 years ago
@Laurie - what do you have a problem with in this 4 year old thread? Usually when you apply a herbicide you shouldn't let dogs on it until dry, or maybe 24 hours. I don't have a dog but if I did I would only spot spray weeds and would keep the dog away for a day.
gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
4 years ago
Considering this is a rather stale thread and one I'm not sure warranted the above comment, let me just add this......yes, it can be harmful to both dogs and small children. But rarely if used according to label directions. The fertilizer portion is not at issue but the herbicide portion could be. This is because it is a granulated product and those granules can easily be embedded in foot pads and fur, which the dog takes into the house and proceeds to groom out by licking. Same with kids running and playing on recently treated lawns. Both our pets and kids have less developed immune systems and a small amount of ingested pesticide could have much more serious impact on them than it does on any adult.

It is best if you can wait to let the dogs or kids play on a treated lawn until any granules disappear with the next rainfall or routine irrigation.

And the previous comments about the inefficiencies of weed 'n feed products remain very valid. Formulated entirely for the convenience of the homeowner rather than providing the best care methods for a lawn. And because it is a granulated product and frequently over applied, it is often a big contributor to groundwater pollution.
dchall_san_antonio
4 years ago
Where in the replies did they start to seem unhelpful to you?

If it matters, I've had 5 dogs, one or two after another, continuously since 1986. The dogs and my children have had an impact on my opinions about garden chemicals.
User
4 years ago
@Laurie Spry Thank you for your kind commentary, we always simply adore hearing from people like you. It really makes our day when we offer commentary on the appropriate use of products and receive commentary like yours. Do come again, truly. We really mean that. We do. You can't imagine how much.
User
4 years ago
Yep, with the consequence that I felt no particular need to be forgiving and can treat the sock-puppet like a pit-bull puppy would.
dchall_san_antonio
4 years ago
Suddenly Laurie Spry has no comments or posts. Now we all look crazy. You guys did see that, right?
HU-904036281
3 years ago
F$^k sake just tell me how long to wait before i can let dog in the yard? 2 days?
gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
3 years ago
24-48 hours after a thorough watering so that the pesticides have had a chance to dissolve and enter into the soil profile. You should not be able to see any visual signs of the weed 'n feed remaining.

But if you have pets or small children that like to play on the lawn, you might want to investigate better and safer lawn care practices than weed 'n feed products provide.
User
3 years ago
Yeah, the problem being that the pesticides need time to enter the weeds before the watering, and the dog obviously needs to go to the bathroom a bit more often than every other. If you're going to use it, isolate a section you don't apply it to and keep the dog there, then apply it to that section a few days later after you've irrigated it in.

Or don't use the Weed and Feed, spot-treat weeds as we usually recommend, and feed separately. You can let the dog on the lawn immediately after lawn feeding, although some dogs are sensitive to it and should have their paws washed.

For spot-treating weeds, simply keep the dog away from the areas spot treated, and you also avoided tossing pesticides at areas that didn't need it--and treated at the correct time, which Weed and Feed doesn't.

is scotts weed and feed safe when i have a dog?

dchall_san_antonio

Comments (11)

forsheems

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