The yard is where most people can walk around with their kids or pets to relieve stress after a long strenuous working day. Others might consider gardening as their hobby, and they do that two or three times a week.
However, some issues disrupt their pastime, and stickers are one. People try various ways to stop them from growing as their spiking appearance hurts them badly. Therefore, the concern of how to get rid of stickers in yard is always in their mind.
Also on the quest for solutions to this thorn in your side? Keep scrolling down gardening101.net as you can pocket many useful tips to get rid of and prevent them from coming back completely. Let’s go!
Why Do Stickers Grow In The Yard?
Before figuring out how to get rid of stickers in the yard, we must know why they can develop in our yard.
Stickers or burr weeds are considered winter grass which grows annually, especially in late winter when circumstances are ideal. Appropriate weather, grass moisture, or thin turf regions are among their favorable conditions. And even the gaps in sidewalks, roadways, or roads are also great shelters for them to grow.
Grass burr seeds are plentiful and originate from a variety of sources. They have the potential to stay inactive in your yard soil for many years until the conditions are perfect for their germinating.
The seeds of these weeds can get into your yard in many ways. The first one is by sticking on to the animals, and these creatures sneak into your yard then leave these seeds behind. Besides, they can be dispersed by wind or rain.
Another possibility is that you go to the area where bur weeds flourish, and they will follow your lead and invade your yard.
Facts You Must Know Before Treating Stickers
To figure out the best solution for your concern on how to get rid of stickers in the lawn, comprehending the characteristics of stickers weeds is a must to map out a proper strategy. Below are a few facts about them:
- These weeds aren’t a big fan of dense, green grassland. They must fight with other weeds to get their share of the nutrients. Moreover, they despise water which means you can stop their spread by watering your yard at least once per day.
- In the early stages, you may dig them up by hand easily as their roots are shallow.
- The primary source of infection is the seeds contained inside the stickers. With assistance from your pet, the grass seed won’t take much time to dominate your whole yard. For that reason, you need to keep an eye on your pet.
How To Get Rid Of Stickers In Yard
Light Infestations
Cultural Control
The first answer for the concern of getting rid of sticker bugs in your yard is applying cultural control.
A weed-hostile yard is one you’ve worked hard to create. These weeds only flourish in dry conditions. And they don’t enjoy competing for resources such as water and soil.
So the first thing you should do is maintain a lush, green lawn. A good place to start is with a thick layer of lawn grass. For this, you have to water your lawn on a regular basis.
Fertilizers are the next item on our list. Growing plants quickly is the best way to hinder the invasion of weeds.
Home Remedies
Using vinegar can help you remove sand burrs, sticker burrs, and sticker weeds easily without any additional preparation.
You may do it this way:
- Mowing may be necessary in the first place, as the thinner the grass, the easier your job is. Vinegar, which may destroy lawn grass, is a key ingredient in this cure.
- Begin by removing all of the extra stickers weeds from your grass using a rake. Vinegar will be needed to finish off any remaining infections. Rake the weeds into a garbage bag and toss it away.
- Get an empty spray bottle and pour vinegar inside, then spray on top of the sand burrs several times until your lawn smells like vinegar. Keep spraying every day until all the weeds are dead.
- When all of the weeds have been abolished, you should water your lawn frequently and watch out for any sign of their revenge.
Severe Infestations
Manual Labor
You’ll have to take a lawnmower to do the whole thing. Despite its difficulty, it is the most environmentally-friendly choice. You can hire someone to do it for you if you are too busy. Check ahead of time to see whether they’ve had experience with sticker weeds previously.
The following is a simple procedure to follow when cutting the grass:
- A bag may be attached to the mower to collect lawn burrs as you try to gather as many of them as possible after mowing.
- If you don’t own a lawnmower, raking the weeds is a great alternative, then collect them by hand later.
Herbicides ( MSMA and Pre-Emergent Herbicide)
The last solution for your concern about getting rid of stickers in the grass is herbicides. Using herbicides is dangerous, so you should handle them with care.
It would be best to use herbicide when you have plans to travel somewhere else for a few days and let the herbicide work the magic. The most common product is MSMA or Monosodium Methanearsonate.
Due to its hazardous characteristics, you might need help from a professional to decide how much you should pour into the soil.
Besides, pre-emergent herbicide is also a great idea to combat the nasty weed.
How To Prevent Stickers From Coming Back
After the concern of how to get rid of stickers in your yard has been answered, we must find a way to prevent recurrence.
Our purpose is to eliminate all the seeds in the yard so that no new weed can develop and spread. Therefore, to stop them from coming back is to clean up after every season. It is a tedious job, but it is worth your effort.
Preventive chemicals are what you should use in this situation. Incorporate a pre-emergent weed killer into your routine. You may start using it in the spring with pendimethalin.
When the winter ends, it’s critical to spray herbicide on your yard. It would help if you waited until the earth was completely thawed so that the chemical could work properly.
FAQs
Are touching stickers painful?
Yes, especially with your bare hand. If the spike goes deeper in your skin and stays there, the pain might be worse..
What kind of plant yields stickers?
When the sandbur plant dies, the seeds it contains will become stickers.
How fast do stickers spread?
These weeds can spread swiftly. You, your pet, or a wild animal may receive a grass burs trapped in some parts of the body, and then it moves outside and finds a new location.
Conclusion
And that’s how to get rid of stickers in yard. Depending on the severity of the infestation in your yard, you can choose the proper methods to deal with it.
However, we highly recommend you to use eco-friendly products to abolish them as they are safer for your plants and your health.
Thank you for your reading, and we hope you’ve taken away some useful tips that can be put into practice immediately.