Are you frustrated byTexas crabgrass? Unfortunately, our climate can be conducive to a lot of crabgrass growth. Crabgrass also thrives in sandy, compacted soil which are the conditions found in most Texas lawns.
While we know crabgrass can be a major source of frustration, there are solutions.
We’re here to guide you on how to treat crabgrass in the most effective way. As with any weeds, a multi-faceted approach is going to be your best chance of controlling this tough weed.
Table of Contents
Is crabgrass invasive?
What kills crabgrass?
How to treat crabgrass?
Will crabgrass die in winter?
An immediate solution for crabgrass control
Take control of crabgrass with lawn care services in North Texas
Yes, crabgrass is an invasive weed that will spread rapidly if given the opportunity. As an opportunistic invader, crabgrass will start to choke out your healthy grass if given the chance.
It all starts in a few bare spots or thin areas.
Crabgrass tends to quickly fill in these areas of the lawn where healthy grass is struggling to grow. This is why you often see it creeping in at scalped edges of sidewalks, driveways, and other hardscaping. It can thrive in compacted soil, where healthy grass will struggle.
And thanks to its fast-growing nature, crabgrass can spread rapidly. It’s a highly aggressive weed. Just one crabgrass plant can generate 75,000 seeds in one season!
A quick Internet search of “What kills crabgrass?” will generate a lot of home remedies. Boiling water and vinegar are two that we commonly see. Let’s talk about these two popular DIY methods and why we don’t recommend them.
We’ll also talk about what we DO recommend for crabgrass control.
Yes, boiling water can kill crabgrass but that doesn’t mean it’s something that we’d recommend.
Boiling water kills crabgrass because it puts the plant cells into “heat shock,” disrupting the cells’ structure and ultimately killing them.
Dumping boiling water on your lawn is cumbersome and potentially dangerous. It means taking the time to boil water, bring it outside, and then dump it in spots where you have crabgrass growing. Given the highly aggressive growth patterns of crabgrass this could mean dumping boiling water in a lot of locations!
You could also risk accidentally burning yourself if any of the scalding water gets on your skin.
Plus, it’s important to note that boiling water typically only kills the above-ground portion of weeds. It’s not necessarily going to have any impact on the roots. So, your weeds might just come right back.
Yes, spraying vinegar on your weeds (like crabgrass) can kill them. But it can also kill your surrounding grass.
We do not recommend spraying weeds with vinegar as it is another cumbersome and time-consuming weed control method. It involves going around your lawn and attempting to target all of your crabgrass. Multiple applications will likely be needed in order to be successful.
Aside from vinegar, we’ve also seen ideas using salt on weeds. But this approach is even worse as it can actually impact the health of your soil. Salty soil is not good for growing healthy grass!
Instead of these DIY methods, we have a more effective crabgrass control approach that we’d recommend. We’ll talk about that next.
The best approach to crabgrass control is a preventative one.
Crabgrass preventer is applied two times as a pre-emergent treatment to North Texas lawns. The first application occurs in late fall, and an additional crabgrass preventer is applied in early spring. Pre-emergent weed control targets crabgrass weed seeds right when they germinate to reduce the chance of them emerging above the surface.
But crabgrass preventer is not perfect. There is always going to be some breakthrough growth. To address this, you must also use a post-emergent product during peak growing season—late spring through early fall. Crabgrass in Texas is persistent. It does not want to give up, so you can’t either.
There is no magic bullet for stopping crabgrass forever. It takes patience and consistency—and more patience.
And even when you do all the right things, it will keep trying to creep back in. So, while we’d like to tell you that you can “eliminate it for good,” and then stop your efforts, you can’t give up on crabgrass control. It must be an ongoing effort if you’re serious about keeping this weed out.
But it goes beyond that. Good lawn care habits will also play a role in keeping crabgrass away. That’s because when your lawn is thick and healthy, it makes it much more challenging for crabgrass to creep in.
As we’ve mentioned, crabgrass tends to fill in bare spots and thin areas. If you make an effort to reduce or eliminate bare spots and thin areas (with services like lawn aeration and fertilization), it can make a huge difference in your approach to crabgrass control.
Yes, crabgrass will typically die after the first frost during the winter months. But it won’t be long until it germinates and starts growing again. And you do want to make sure that you’re applying early spring crabgrass preventer prior to germination so that you can ensure its effectiveness.
The key to success with crabgrass prevention is applying pre-emergent products on the appropriate timeline.
Effectively getting rid of crabgrass can take around two years (and even then it might still be trying to come back).
If you trust the process, you will see a difference. But we know that some homeowners are looking for a more immediate solution.
An alternative for controlling patches of crabgrass if the problem isn’t pervasive is to jumpstart the process by physically digging out the crabgrass weeds, and then replacing sod in the bare spots as described. This should be followed up with a lawn care program including crabgrass preventer and summer crabgrass control.
Crabgrass might be the most frustrating weed. But you can take control. Now you know what it takes to get rid of stubborn crabgrass in your Texas lawn, and if you follow these steps you will have a good chance of controlling this common weed.
A pro can help take the guesswork out of this process and help you implement the most effective solutions. When you invest in lawn care services in North Texas, you gain valuable professional guidance.
At the end of the day, the best defense is a year-round lawn care program that not only prevents many weeds from appearing (pre-emergent control) but also addresses weeds after they appear in the lawn (post-emergent control). Along with that, fertilization helps stoke healthy turf growth, and proper mowing and watering will promote a vital, strong lawn that does a better job standing up against weeds like crabgrass.
Seriously, crabgrass doesn’t have to be a headache if you hire a pro. Get a Free Quote, then you can enjoy the best lawn on the block!
