What makes a good lawn? Opinions differ here. For some owners, it needs to be dense, green and “pure.” Others, on the other hand, are happy about every little flower. Wild herbs that get lost between blades of grass can be tolerated or controlled. What do you choose?
How can you control or use wild herbs in the lawn?
To reduce wild herbs in the lawn, you should regularly mow, scarify, reseed gaps, weed and cut out stubborn herbs such as dandelions. A natural lawn design can enable the use of wild herbs for salads or smoothies.
These wild herbs love the lawn
Bland bindweed, mugwort, broad plantain, thread speedwell, daisies, common sweetweed, groundweed, groundwort, barnyardgrass, corn poppy, small brownwort, creeping goosefoot, creeping buttercup, dandelion, red deadnettle, clover, chickweed, meadowfoam, etc.
Eat or destroy?
There are some edible wild herbs in the list. For example daisies, groundweed, groundhogs, dandelions and chickweed. If you can get used to a colorful lawn, you can pick the leaves and flowers of wild herbs for salads.
Tip
The leaves of edible wild herbs are full of he althy ingredients. They also provide power as an ingredient in green smoothies.
Mow the lawn regularly
Many wild herbs reproduce through seeds. This must be prevented if their spread in the lawn is not desired.
- Start mowing the lawn early in the year
- mow regularly at short intervals
- Always mow the grass short
- mow as long as possible, preferably until winter
Verticulate lawn
Shallow-rooted wild herbs have a hard time surviving the use of a scarifier. The procedure should be repeated every spring.
Reseeding gaps
Wild herbs are stubborn and not picky. They use every free space that comes their way. If unsightly gaps appear in the lawn over time, they should be sown with grass as soon as possible. This also applies to the smallest gaps.
Weed regularly
Weeding is a laborious but effective method of getting rid of wild herbs without using chemicals. Many of them, like chickweed, are easy to pull out. Keep up with your weeding by checking the lawn regularly for new specimens. This means that the wild herbs don't have the opportunity to form seeds.
Tip
The meadow foamweed does not like drought. Therefore, take breaks from watering more often. The lawn will survive this while these unwanted weeds die off.
Cut out wild herbs
Some wild herbs in the garden are not so easy to get rid of. The dandelion is one of them. Even though its sunny yellow flowers look gorgeous and its leaves make a delicious salad, it can be a nuisance in the garden.
Many people consistently pull it out and are still surprised that new dandelion flowers keep blooming. This is because it can also sprout new ones from root residues. Since the dandelion forms a very deep taproot, it must be cut out with a suitable device (€42.00 on Amazon).
