Ortho's Grass B Gone is a pretty common product and should do the trick. It only targets grasses and grass-like plants so if any of those desirable plants look like a grass then avoid them. If the weeds you need to remove are something other than a grass, then you will need to resort to hand pulling - other types of weedkillers or broad spectrum herbicides cannot distinguish between something you don't want and something you do :-))

And ALWAYS read and follow the label directions!!

Thanks to both responses!

I have a similar size plot (mine is the "hell strip" between the sidewalk and the street that I've converted from lawn to native plants. As a lawn it was difficult to water without wasting a lot on the pavement. I hand weed it, either using a hori hori knife on taprooted weeds or a dutch hoe. That was a lot of work early on, but as the plants fill in more and more the weeds haven't been able to compete.

Creeping charlie, eh? Any time I have heard that come up it is always someone wanting to get rid of it. I don't think that one is a native...

Heh, I wondered about that too, Woods. Assuming he meant Glechoma, that's pretty far from a native!

I had the same thought, Creeping Charlie is not native and is usually considered a weed that can be difficult to get rid of.

What kind of grass?

Whenever anyone asks about spraying to kill 'grass' I wonder if they are referring to bermuda, because down here it is most often the grass that is invading (from lawns). If its bermuda or another type that spreads aggressively by underground runners next door, this approach won't work, the grass will keep coming in from the source and you have to kill every bit of root, there really is no fast easy fix. With bunch grasses I find it easier to just pull rather than trying to target plants and both perennial or annual weed types need an early period of vigilance like woodstea described. Mostly you need to be sure to remove the plants early on before it drops seeds, otherwise its a waste of time. Considering the time of year it is, they've probably already seeded the area for next year.

I assumed the creeping charlie was native, but I now see that it's not.

I don't know what kind of grass it is. I think there's more than one type.

I weeded extensively pulling up roots. The weeds came out like sod.

Paul, maybe some good photos would help us hone in on this.

Please don't encourage Creeping Charlie...I would say, don't tolerate it :) My neighbor ignores it...so I can't adequately combat it on my property...always more coming :(

Serious lawn weed, minor entity in the realm of invasive plant species. Cannot fly over miles of territory in bird's gut, cannot blow seeds all over creation, but in that lawn, a tough customer. Two applications of phenoxy herbicides (2-4D, etc.) sprayed 10 days apart did the trick on my lawn years ago. Now of course, it's all back having crept in from the sides of the yard. Well.....I've got grandkids that play in that lawn now, real young kids that like to stick everything in their mouths, etc. so no lawn weed sprays these days. Maybe some day I can get the lawn back up to snuff, but really, it's green, you can walk on the mixture of actual turf grasses, Glechoma, and wood violets! I don't really care about my lawn, beyond having one, as opposed to mud out in the yard! So those weeds can stay for now.

wisconsitom, I can post some pictures later this weekend. We had two days with lots of rain this week, and I haven't had a chance to spend time in my yard.

When I bought the house 4 years ago, the dirt (no lawn) in the front yard was 4-5" higher than the sidewalk, and the weeds in the back yard were 5' tall. I had the front yard skidloaded, I put in sprinklers, planters, and walkway, and now I have a beautiful lawn. I cut back everything in the back yard, but am not going to landscape it until I can put in a patio at the backdoor, which I hope to do during the summer of 2018. Among the many weeds I continually cut back in the back yard, there's hundreds of square feet of creeping charlie. Mowing it low seems to keep it from spreading too much. The front and back are pretty well separated, so it never makes it to the lawn out front.

Last May and June, I pulled thousands of dandelions with a weed puller that grabs the root. I think I got just about every last one of them. I know I will have to do dandelion maintenance forever because some of my neighbors have carpets of dandelions instead of lawns.

Hee, I feel the pain, but then I am sometimes the person who has the purple lawn (because I'm procrastinating starting the mowing season or the ground is wet) from Lamium species. I don't believe in herbiciding the lawn on a regular basis, so the weeds will always reappear.

Paul, generally, mowing very low like that actually encourages the weeds. If you can tolerate a slightly higher mowing, it will tend to cast shade on the Glechoma (creeping Charlie) and while that sure won't stop it, you will at least be no longer encouraging it by giving it all that sunlight.