kill dandelions
Gardening

How To Prevent & Kill Dandelions

Dandelions are a nuisance to both gardeners and homeowners and preventing and killing them can benefit your lawn. The seeds of pesky dandelion s ride the wind currents and propagate the species as soon as they drop into your lawn. Below-ground, the plant can grow a taproot of up to 10 inches and pulling it can be problematic if it splits and leaves behind a portion that can regenerate. This means dandelions should be removed completely to prevent regeneration. Below is how to prevent and kill dandelions to ensure they don’t become a nuisance.

How to prevent dandelions

As with any other problem, prevention is always better than cure. Schwartz Brothers Landscaping says the best way to protect your lawn is to prevent dandelions from attacking it. Having a thick layer of dense grass is one way to protect your garden from these weeds. It is a reliable way to weed out these plants, preventing them from growing. However, if you fail to prevent them from invading your garden or lawn and they end up growing there, you can kill them using various methods.

How to kill dandelions

There are several ways to kill dandelions. To begin with, you can dig them up or uproot them from the ground when the soil is moist. You can also pour water to dampen the soil around the weed before uprooting. You can use a weeding knife to work along the base of the weed and wiggle it to push the surrounding soil away. Ensure you pull out the entire dandelion plant with the taproot to avoid regeneration.

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If uprooting the entire dandelion using a weeding knife seems like too much work for you, you can opt to use herbicides. Upon uprooting the dandelion, you can target any of its remaining roots with herbicide to kill the weeds completely. However, keep in mind that most natural herbicides found at the local store are nonselective and will ordinarily kill any plant they come into contact with. So, you should be careful not to kill your grass in the process of eliminating weeds. You can apply herbicide into the holes from which you uprooted the dandelions.

If you dug a hole in your lawn to remove a dandelion, you need to fill it up. A pre-emergent herbicide and some soil can help to fill the space. Loose soil is vulnerable to several other aggressive weeds that could attack your plants and flowers. To prevent dandelions from regenerating, fill the hole with soil and pre-emergent herbicides. You should avoid planting new grass in this area because even natural pre-emergent herbicides are somewhat nonselective and will kill all plants that come into contact with them, including your beautiful flowers and grass.

Dandelions are common in some gardens or lawns and can be pesky weeds. If you’ve been battling such weeds in your garden for a while, you should try removing them by their taproots and applying herbicide to kill the remaining parts of the weed. Maintaining a healthy lawn is a way of ensuring it is not susceptible to weed invasion. Digging up dandelions can be a time-consuming process but is ideal if you want to eliminate weeds without using toxic chemicals. If none of these tips works, you may consider consulting a professional landscaping company to help maintain a weed-free lawn.

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