Grass full of weeds

[Margo2023]

I am not very green fingered at all! In a new build with a small garden (south facing) with grass. First year, lovely grass, last couple of years pretty much the same. This year, upon mowing at the start of Summer, it's just become tufts of weeds in amongst the grass. I don't really know where to begin to get rid of them. I'm worried about buying a bottle of weed killer and using that in case it kills the grass? Guess my question is, how to get rid of them without wrecking the grass, if that's possible?

Can you not learn to love the biodiversity? I’m a big fan of lawns with clover, daisies, speedwell, moss etc. Cheerful and it stays greener than grass if we have a hot dry summer (ok that may not be an issue this year!).

It depends on the weeds. My front lawn was decimated by plantains and dandelions due to the council's no mow may.

I used a weed and seed lawn product on it and the weeds have died back. It still looks a mess but the grass is gradually growing over the brown patches.

The back garden won't win any prizes but is populated with tiny, pretty weeds and moss which I can live with.

Mine is full of brambles, bindweed and ragwort. I've done the weed and feed to no avail. Now I rely on someone to strim it once a fortnight.

There are a few strategies depending on how perfect you want it and how much effort you are willing to put in.

1- keep mowing. Grass is uniquely suited to a good mow, and will come back stronger while other plants will be weakened. Mow weekly-ish during peak growing times, aiming to reduce grass by 1/3 each time
2 - oversow with new seed. Better done in spring, but google lawn rejuvenation. There is a whole process, it is labour intensive and you won’t be able to use your lawn for a period of time, but this is the path to a more picture perfect lawn. Personally I would only go this route if it was bad, but some perfectionists do this on an annual basis
3- broadleaf weed killer. Not my favourite, but there are herbicides that will kill weeds without harming grass. I don’t know that it works better than option 1in the long run, it might be the right call if you are particularly overrun with weeds.

and as with pp, some biodiversity is a good thing -I don’t mind a it of self seeding, especially when they come with flowers (thyme, clover, daisies, etc.). it still functions like a lawn bit with a bit more colour and better for the wildlife,

It's been hard to keep on top of the mowing this year but if you mow as regularly as you can the big ones will be deterrered in my experience.
The low growing weeds like clover and daisies are more likely to stay but they more or less blend in (plus flowers for the bees as a bonus).

Depends on what you want. I have never treated our grass, be it feed or weed killer. It's currently a mix of grass, daisies and clover with a few dandelions thrown in. We cut it regularly and it's green, which is all I look for 🤷‍♀️.

I don't know. My current strategy is to pull out the bigger weeds and to try to encourage clover to be more bee friendly and crowd out the other weeds. It's early days. And it's a losing battle against the ground elder. I don't like chemical solutions.

I love my weedy lawn, and so do the insects. However just keep close cutting - the big stuff will give up and you should end up with grass and small stuff like daisies and it'll look lovely.

Our lawn used to be thick and lush, now full of daisies but we’re not doing anything differently. I quite like the daisies, it looks magical. DH not so keen!

I go over mine every now and again on my hands and knees with a sharp vegetable knife and attack persistent unwanted weeds such as dandelions and plantain. You can get lawn weedkiller stuff that kills weeds and is harmless to grass, just make sure the spray doesn't drift onto your plants in the flower bed.

Mine was full of dandelion, thistle, alkanet and herb robert. I used a dandelion remover to pull them out and over seeded. I didn’t need it to be perfect, I just wanted it to be mostly grass.

I completely agree love the biodiversity 🐝

In a world where habitat loss and the use of chemicals in the countryside since World War II has done and the untold damage our gardens provide a sanctuary for wildlife.

Thanks all have picked up some spray so will give that a go tomorrow

Ours is the same - we call it our ‘wildflower meadow’ (not that it’s meadow-sized, it’s tiddly.)

If it’s any comfort, a BiL has a beautiful chateau in Burgundy with a huge area of ‘grass’ - except that it’s nearly all clover and other ‘intruders’ . But it’s kept well mown and as long as it’s green, he honestly doesn’t care.