4 Things to Know Before Killing Weeds in Your Lawn

At some point, we’ve all learned that common weeds (looking at you, dandelions) are the enemy. It’s easy to think of weeds as a nuisance and assume that you have to get rid of them all to have a beautiful garden. Turns out, there’s more to the story than that.

Are all weeds created equal and should we strive to eradicate them all from our yards with equal zeal? The answer is probably not.

You don’t want your lawn to be completely overrun by weeds, but not all weeds are harmful to your lawn, and removing them often does more harm than good.

We’ll share some things to know before removing weeds from your lawn and garden.

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Not all weeds are created equal

It is important to assess what types of weeds are lurking in and around your green lawn. Some weeds can be harmful to your lawn, such as foxtail and quackgrass, which fight against your turf for water and other nutrients.

There are many different types of plants that we call weeds. There are broadleaf weeds, like dandelions and clover, herbaceous weeds like foxtail and timothy, sedges like cogon grass and kyllinga, woody weeds like poison ivy and raspberry, aquatic weeds like duckweed and water hyacinth, and many more.

But other weeds can actually enrich the soil, like clover, which adds more nitrogen to the soil and helps your grass grow stronger. Dandelions are also a pretty fun weed to have in your lawn—they have taproots that bring nutrients from deep in the soil to the surface.

Better biodiversity

Growing more plants in your lawn can help it better withstand pests, diseases, and other stressors like heat and drought. Weeds can also help provide food and shelter for insects and pollinators in ways that grass alone cannot.

For example, bees don’t care for old grass, but they do like dandelions.

Make friends with some weeds

Intercropping is the practice of planting plants close together so they can protect each other from pests or support and promote the growth of one another—and it really works.

Weeds can sometimes be companion plants to your lawn, such as mugwort, a plant that is quite resistant to pests and can help the plants around it become more disease resistant.

Weeds can send signals of healthy soil

In addition to deciding whether or not to kill weeds, weeds can give us a better idea of ​​what’s going on underneath your lawn. For example, if you have dandelions growing wild in your lawn, it’s possible that your soil is compacted.

On the other hand, clover can indicate that your soil is lacking in nitrogen. You can use this to help ensure your lawn is getting all the care it needs and take some corrective steps.