Is Your Crabgrass Really Crabgrass?

Here at Lush Lawn, we always welcome questions from our customers. Whether it be the best time to water the grass, the proper mower blade length, how to fix patchy grass with slit-seeding, or sometimes even who we think’s going to win the next Tigers game. One of the questions we get asked a lot is if we get rid of crabgrass. And the answer is “YES, we do!”  The problem with this question is that many people associate many different families of weeds with the name ‘crabgrass’ when in actuality, ‘crabgrass’ is a weed unto itself. Knowing certain characteristics of crabgrass will go a long way toward eliminating this confusion.
Most desirable lawn grasses have somewhat narrow leaves. These grasses include: Bluegrass, Creeping Red Fescue, Chewing Fescue and others. Native wild grasses, on the other hand – such as quack grass, barnyard grass, goose grass, and even foxtail – tend to have a much wider leaf blade. Crabgrass also has a wide bladed leaf but it has other characteristics that make it easily identified.

First of all, crabgrass is an annual and will not survive any frost. Therefore, you will not find crabgrass in your lawn when temperatures still drop to or below freezing at night. And when crabgrass first starts to sprout it will have several very short and wide blades that are a much lighter green than the rest of the lawn. Crabgrass also has much less fiber content in its leaves than most other grasses. In fact, if you pull off a blade of crabgrass and smash it then roll it between your forefinger and thumb, it will basically become green mush. Crabgrass also tends to hold a lot of water in its leaves.

The bottom line here is that if our customers are going to spend their hard-earned money on service with us, we want them to be informed and educated on all the various types of weeds. We want everyone to be on the same page so that we can be the most effective at ridding those unsightly weeds and restore the beauty & health to your lawn! Click here for a free quote.