Video Library

Do My Own Lawn Care - Talking Tiller Stages

By DoMyOwn staff

One day, you have a plan set in stone to tackle a weed problem in the yard, next thing you know, mother nature throws a curve ball and totally shuts that plan down. That is exactly what happens in this episode of the Do My Own Lawn Care video series. Paul, along with Heath, had plans to tackle a major grassy broadleaf weed problem in the grass outside of the DoMyOwn.com office building. The rain came, changed the game, and instead they talk about what tiller stages are and why you should know th

 Do My Own Lawn Care - Talking Tiller Stages Video Play

Video Transcript

Still watering. Still growing. Still looking good!

I probably should mow back here because it's kind of getting a little out of control with the weeds, but I still want to hold off and try and wait for those new seedlings to get about three to three and a half inches tall.

So, I'll just continue to watch the grass grow.

But what I want to talk about today doesn't have to do with my back yard. It doesn't have to do with my front yard. It doesn't have to do with my own personal yard at all!

What am I talking about? Well let's take a little drive.

Every single day that I come to work and walk past our grass, it makes me cringe. Let me show you what I'm talking about.

Now it doesn't look like it right now because it was freshly cut this morning but this section right here, that section right there, and that section back there, full of weeds.

Matter of fact, it reminds me of my yard when I first started my rehab program, just chalked full of weeds. Just...doesn't look good. So we want to fix that.

Now what kind of weeds are we dealing with? Well, let's talk to one of the experts.

So we've got a bunch of different weeds out here.

Dove weed.

Crabgrass.

Nut sedge.

Spotted Spurge.

Chamber Bitter.

And Virginia button weed.

Actually if you want to get a good picture of Dove Weed, do that one! That whole thing is nothing but Dove Weed.

So this whole thing right in here.

This whole thing! Look at this! That's all Dove Weed.

So what's the plan?

Hit it with some Herbicides and see what happens.

We've got Bermuda mixed into out Fescue, but I'm not sure if we're going to do anything with our Bermuda.

Where's the actual grass though? That's...

It is right here.

We've got one little tiny section right there.

Right here.

Got our work cut out for us.

We've gotta job ahead of us, yes.

What's kind of of funny about all this, is we actually pay a lawn service to come out here and spray for these weeds.

I wish we could say that we've let it get this bad on purpose but that's not that truth. That's just our lawn care service for you.

And as you can see they've done an OK job, but we think we can do better.

So really we've got a whole lot of stuff in each one of these little sections, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to test three different products, in these three different areas, see how they stack up against each other, and we're just going to see what we can do this late in the game. See what kind of control we can get. And yeah, just see what happens.

So, yeah. That was the plan, but...unforeseen things happened and we just, we just missed our window of opportunity.

Mother nature happened.

Mother nature happened. That's right.

So the first opening shots of this video, that was shot about a week ago and we had planned on putting down our herbicide application the very next day. But mother nature had other plans and it just dumped rain on us. And for about a week.

Seven days.

Yeah, seven days.

So like Paul said, we had a very small window. We were trying to do weed control prior to an aeration and overseeding that's scheduled for the middle of September. We knew that we had about 30 days and 30 days was it. Well now that we've had rain for a week straight, that's pushed our window back to 21 days.

Yeah, just screwed up the whole schedule.

The schedule has been blown up.

Yup!

So, we are no longer able to spray the herbicides because we don't want to interfere with the aeration and overseeding and the germination from the seed that they're putting down.

Say that again!

I'm glad to see that you got a hat and glasses now that Gods let the sun come back out.

You just got to always be prepared man.

Another a reason we didn't do the application, we were worried about our chances of success. And the reason for that is...

The maturity of the weeds.

Maturity of the weeds. Alright explain that to us.

So, with crabgrass in particular, and that's one of the ones we wanted to try out and see if we could get results on, it grows through tiller stages. And that's how you have to look at it. Usually most herbicides will effect it any where from the third to the fifth or seventh tiller stage. Anything beyond that, you will not get very good results from it.

OK, so try to explain to us, because when we were talking about this, this is the first time that I've ever heard tiller stage. And I didn't know what that was, so explain that.

So, tiller stage, is the individual branches coming off of the grass itself. So each one of these branches is considered a tiller stage. So as you can see, this one is probably about the 30th tiller stage! Very mature crab grass.

So when we're talking about tiller stages, we're talking about the individual branches off of the crab grass plant. So, each one of these branches is considered a tiller. And then off of each tiller, you'll have leaves that come off. So when we're talking about the 7th tiller stage, we're literally talking about seven stems off of one crab grass plant.

It does not take very long for crab grass to mature like this. This has probably been growing for a few weeks and only a few weeks to get to this stage. So, we wanted to try it, see if we could get any results, mother nature didn't help us out, and so we're not going to do it.

So, to get good results from any product that you're going to use for crab grass, you do have to hit it early, and early in the tiller stages. So the younger the crab grass, the better results you're going to have from any of the weed control that you apply to it.

It is very difficult to get control after the 7th tiller stage. You may get some decline or some suppression, but maybe not total eradication of the weed.

So we're not abandoning this project, we are going to get out here and try some control methods, stake up a couple of different products to see how they do against each other. We're going to come back out here we're just not going to be able to do it..

This year.

This year. Next year. To be continued!

Yes!

You had a good idea. What was your idea?

My idea was to let the viewers kind of decide on what products to use in the different zones that we have out here. We have about three different spots that we could use three different products. So maybe put a list of five or six products that's specific for fescue, and let y'all decide on what y'all want to see results from.

Now we know of product that we are for certain we're going to use but we're going to keep that under our hat, we're going to keep that as a surprise, but yeah...list what you want to see us use in these different areas for fescue.

Yup, and hopefully broad leaf and grassy weed control.

Yeah, good idea! Boom.

SO there you go. There's a little peak behind the curtain if you will into some of our future plans for the series and the content that we want to put out there for you.

Seriously cannot wait to sink our teeth into controlling that area, this area and that one back there. But we've got to wait. Patience. Patience.

We're going to get back to my yard. I've still got the back yard where we're trying to get the tall fescue to grow. Still got some things we've got to do there. Talk about fall tips. There's still more content to come.

Also keep commenting in the comments section below on content that you would like to see us tackle, questions that you need help answering, just keep the conversation going. Keep the tips coming for everybody to learn and grow and learn what it takes to do their own lawn care.

If you're not already subscribe to the channel by clicking this button. You can click this playlist to see all the videos in the Do My Own Lawn Care series, and click this playlist to see all the videos in the Do My Own Gardening series.

And thanks to our customer service staff member for helping me out on this one, also, thanks for watching!