No matter how many years I live in Arizona it always surprises me how quickly the temperature goes from 50 degrees to 90 degrees. I can’t say that I’m very excited to see our first 90 degree day this coming weekend. I would be okay if we could make it until April for this to happen but we don’t get that choice. Since we rarely have a winter in Southern California and Arizona February is the month to apply your pre-emergent herbicide to control summer annuals. If you’re from back east or the mid-west you will realize this is about three months earlier than you would apply one but timing is everything in turfgrass. I spend so much time discussing weather in these blogs because every part of the grass cycle is controlled by temperature.

Summer annual weeds can be everything from spurge to any number of broadleaf weeds. These weeds attack weak areas of your lawn and fill in voids because of the lack of competition with your grass. There are a few options to controlling these and the first is to maintain a healthy balanced lawn. The second is to apply pre-emergent fertilizers, and the third is to treat weeds that pop up with post-emergent herbicides or by hand picking them.

Most people don’t want to deal with an invasion of weeds in their lawn so the easiest and most efficient way is to apply a pre-emergent herbicide. One thing you must keep in mind when you apply these is that they won’t control weeds that are already present but they will help prevent new weeds from emerging from the ground. When you’re looking at different herbicides to apply you need to carefully inspect the label and see if the product is okay for overseeded turf, non-overseeded turf or both. Most of the herbicides are okay for both but different rates will be listed on the label.

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