Cost-effective weed control to enhance your lawn

There are several steps you can take to prevent — and eradicate — unsightly weeds on your lawn. Best of all? They're pocket-friendly.

• Each type of grass has an ideal cutting height for good health and strong growth.
• When cut no lower than that height, and when cut before it gets too long, the grass will usually outcompete weeds as long as it's also fertilized and watered properly.
• If you don't know your grass type, do a web search, or even better, take a plug of turf to a garden centre and ask the staff to help with the identification.
• It's also important to mow your grass when it needs it. That's when the grass is one-third above the ideal cutting height.
• Depending on the weather conditions, that can mean mowing every week or two, or every four or five days.
• Keeping the height in check also means you're clipping off weed seed heads before they can mature and seed your lawn.

• Poor light or soil conditions can make it all but impossible to grow grass in some areas.
• If you've tried more than once to nurture grass in an area and failed, it might be time to treat the area with a landscaping alternative.
• The obvious choices are stone, mulch and attractive ground cover plants that tolerate the same conditions grass can't handle.
• Kill any weeds with a nonselective herbicide (re-treat survivors after 14 days).
• The herbicide will break down within two weeks and the ground will be safe for new plants.
• If you're covering the ground with a decorative material like stone or mulch, consider laying a weed-control fabric on the ground first to keep weeds from getting another foothold.

• The key to controlling broadleaf weeds is to use a broadleaf herbicide and distribute it with the smallest applicator necessary to do the job.
• That'll not only save time and money but also keep you from needlessly introducing chemicals into the environment.

No matter how lush and healthy your lawn is, a few isolated weeds will pop up. That doesn't call for whole-yard treatment.

• Instead, spot-treat the weeds with a small, trigger-controlled, pump-up pressure sprayer.
• After pouring in the diluted herbicide, you pump up the pressure with a little plunger and then pull the trigger to release the spray right on the culprits.

• Patches or clumps of weeds are best treated with a standard tank sprayer.
• After spraying, triple-rinse the tank with water.
• With each rinse, pump up some pressure and flush out the wand, too.

• If your whole lawn is filled with weeds, you'll need to spray the entire yard, and a dial sprayer attached to your garden hose is the answer. It's fast and efficient. It's just a matter of adding concentrated broadleaf killer to the pot, and setting the dial at the top to the mixture called for on the herbicide container.
• Then hook up the garden hose and apply an even treatment to the weedy areas.
• Clear the yard of toys, furniture and anything else that can get contaminated by overspray. And be sure to protect your flowers and bushes with plastic sheeting or cardboard.
• Remember that broadleaf killers will kill or harm anything with leaves — including your flowerbed.