Lawn weed or not?

Andrewlees1980

Hi,

I'm a complete novice when it comes to gardening and I was hoping for a bit of help.

Our lawn was heavily overgrown with moss and weeds so I scarified it last month and over-seeded the lawn.  The lawn has recovered okay, but there is a lot of new growth of this plant that I'm not sure if it is a weed or not?  There are a number of brown patches with what looks like this dead plant, but also a lot of new growth amongst the new grass shoots. I have already identified yarrow and manually weeded this out, but I couldn't find anything online about this other stuff.  

Also, I'm not sure whether I need to re-scarify the lawn again to remove this stuff or not.

Any advice would be a great help. 

Dave Humby

Looks like it could be field woodrush or one of the derivatives. It's a pain to get rid of as it doesn't respond to the selective lawn weedkillers. Spreads by creeping stolons. Reducing thatch and acidity of the lawn are the main techniques to get rid.

Andrewlees1980

Hi David,

Thank you for the quick reply.  Do you think it would be ok to re-scarify the affected areas now to dig it all out and apply lime to increase and then over-seed again?

I'm conscious it'll be summer soon and be too hot to be seeding the lawn.  I've been watering the lawn every day for the last few weeks since I seeded it and worried I'm just tending to weeds.

Dave Humby

Hi Andrew,

I’m no expert I’m afraid but I know a little about it as I have it in my lawn. As yet I haven’t taken the suggested action (from RHS website etc) and for sure I have an increased amount this year. 

I note that liming is suggested for autumn or winter so you might want to read up on that. I would say go ahead with the scarifying (your pics show a high thatch content so this will help regardless) then seed. Keep the new seed moist and don’t let it dry out at all while it is germinating. You could always leave the lime till the later part of the year depending on what your reading reveals. 

Andrewlees1980

Hi,

I will do some more research as you suggest and give the scarifying another go.

Thank you for the advice, it has been very helpful while I'm still learning.