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Why do we have fewer weeds this winter?
Besides dandelions and a few patches of henbit and winter grass, I don't have as many weeds in my lawn either, and it was riddled last winter.
The almost-record breaking number of 100 degree days in summer 2009 killed out quite a bit of our grass and left exposed patches for weeds to invade. Once the fall rains came, weeds had open ground to jump up and germinate. Those fall rains meant a stellar spring 2010 wildflower season, too. And essentially, weeds are wildflowers!
It wasn't as hot or dry last summer as it was in 2009. I know it doesn't seem that way, but we did also have more rain in the spring, and not so many 100 degree summer days.
This past summer I watered my back lawn only once, and still I have about 90% fewer weeds. The spring rain and cooler summer temperatures helped keep my grass dense enough to shade out the weed seed bank underground.
Lack of fall rain prevented germination, too. Again, this is why we won't see as many wildflowers this spring as we did last year. So, we take the good with the bad!
To prevent spring weeds from coming in, you do need to apply a pre-emergent in the next few weeks, and don't fertilize until your entire lawn is green. We should see fewer weeds this spring as well, so if you don't want to use that pre-emergent, just be very careful with your fertilizer. When you apply a fertilizer too early, you're feeding the weeds that might come in instead of your lawn.
Note: now that we are getting some rain, some winter weeds will be popping out. It's too late to use a product on them. The best thing to do is dig them out before they go to seed to break the seed bank cycle.
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