Dollarweed, chamber bitter, crabgrass and moles

Beverly – posted 21 June 2004 11:16

Help! We’ve been struggling to get rid of the pests listed above for a year. The damage is significant, however I have succeeded in rehabilitating some of the yard and the St. Augustine is growing vigorously. My sister sprayed the dollarweed with a herbicide but it has not killed it completely and it keeps returning. The herbicide also did damage where it was sprayed. I live in central South Carolina. Are there any measures we can take now or any chemicals that can be applied in this heat? The chamber bitter is now appearing.

certified_in_florida – posted 02 July 2004 21:14

In my experience, the best and only control for Chamber Bitter is to treat the grass in the spring with a pre-emergent. Not just any pre-emergent, but one called “Gallary” seemd to work best on my properties this year. Took them from “alot of chamber bitter” to practically none.

As for the $ weed, a product with 2;4-D will generally do the trick. Just have to be extremely careful in the St. Augustine. I have used it successfully, but do be careful. A further note about $ weed – make sure you are not overwatering. Before applying any herbicide to control it, try cutting back on your irrigation. It is generally a problem only when getting too much water – to the point that cutting back on watering may cause it to go bye-bye.

Crabgrass is best treated also by a pre-emergent herbicide.

For moles, I have found that a stick of gum works best for control. Without handling the gum bare handed, put a half stick the the tunnel. Sounds kind of corney, but in 17 years, I haven’t found anything better.

Good luck.

yardpro_2000 – posted 25 July 2004 06:05

any product with 2,4,D will do a great job with the pennywart. there are alot of formulations that contain 2,4D, dicamba, and mccp. it is called tri-mec, three way, triple action, etc. they all have “southern” formulations that are lower in dicamba. They are what we use in st. augustine. Since st. augustine has a low drought tolerance be careful with the water cutback. the st. augustine will stress before the pennywart ($ weed) will.