Weed infested lawn SOS

[Tickettothemoon]

I am completely new to gardening so any advice is appreciated.

After the summer (where we had flattened dead grass) I was pretty happy to see that our garden has been looking lovely and green again. Upon closer inspection what I thought was grass regrowing is actually just weeds!

Can I treat grass in November? And if so how the hell do I get rid of these? What even is it!?

I think it's creeping buttercup. I have it out the back. (The front is mossy.)

Honestly? I just embrace it. It needs less mowing, stands up to drought better than grass, and has cheery flowers for pollinators and for me. And it would be an arse to get rid of. Biodiversity is good!

I do think the 'perfect green grass lawn' as we knew it is very suddenly going to become very old fashioned. It needs loads of resources: human, energy and weedkiller, to stay that way. And the weedkiller is obviously bad for the environment. Pollinators are struggling so poisoning them is to be avoided, but giving them extra forage is maybe a good thing.

I do make sure it doesn't spread into my borders however.

And if you're undecided, it probably is too late to weedkiller it now, although you could dig it out by hand.

Sorry OP, I agree with @TheSpottedZebra - this is not a bad plant to help make up a green lawn. We have it in our lawn too and it is pretty hardy stuff. It stands up to dog pee better than the grass does.

If you were really determined to get rid then I'd wait till spring, rake it out and reseed. Essentially champion the grass in the hope it swamps out the other.

But living with it is a great option

Thank you for your replies!

To be honest I hadn’t even thought about the option of keeping it but think that may be the route I’ll take! Especially as it’s the easiest option and if it will produce little buttercups in the summer.☺️

It is everywhere including the flowerbeds so I’ll guess I’ll be doing some digging in the summer just to clear it from them.

How big are the leaves? They look too rounded for buttercup, and rather dense and uniform in size. If they’re small, not much more than 1cm, they could be Parsley Piert, Aphanes arvensis. In which case I’d expect them eventually to lose out in the competition with the grass.

I got advice from Bob Flowerdew on this one as my lawn was similar. He told me to keep cutting and to seed over the top of the weed. It worked perfectly. The grass won

That’s why it’s so difficult to establish a wildflower meadow.

Leaves look like one of the small weedy Geraniums - Geranium molle probably.