Identifying 9 Common Lawn Weeds

Dandelions (Taraxacum officinale and Teracacum erythrospermum)

The common dandelion is a member of the aster family. It arrived in North America from Europe and quickly established itself as a wildflower and common lawn weed.

Unlike many weeds, dandelion is a perennial plant, and its tenacious, long taproot makes it a difficult enemy to eradicate. But dandelions can be pulled by hand, and the above-ground portion can be killed with horticultural vinegar.

Or, you can eat your dandelions. Yes, dandelions are edible and delicious. All parts of the plant are good in salads or as cooked greens.

Creeping Charlie (Glechoma hederacea)

Although it’s just a common lawn weed, one can count creeping Charlie among the fragrant plants. When you mow a lawn that has creeping Charlie mixed in with the grass, the fragrance is released into the air. Perhaps it’s a small thing, but inhaling the pleasant aroma takes one’s mind off the work involved in mowing.

Creeping Charlie is one of the most stubborn of lawn weeds, but it has shallow roots and is easy enough to pull if you are patient and diligent.

This member of the mint family is also used as a salad green in some places.

Common Plantain (Plantago major)

Common plantain (Plantago major) may take you back to your childhood. Did you have a pet bunny as a kid? What did you feed it? If you built a bottomless outdoor cage for your pet (with the cage resting directly on the ground, without legs), your bunny no doubt would eat the vegetation under him. Grass would have been on the menu, but another favorite dish would have been common plantain (if present). Common plantain is also edible by people and may be used in salads or as a cooked green.

Common plantain has a broad leaf, but a relative, Plantago lanceolata, has grass-like foliage and is called buckthorn plantain, or ribgrass.

You can dig up plantains to get rid of them organically; the roots are relatively shallow. However, this is a perennial weed, and any portion of the roots that aren’t pulled will regenerate.

Common Ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia)

There are two types of ragweed, but the form that haunts lawns is Ambrosia artemisiifolia, or common ragweed.

Unlike some of the other examples on this list, A. artemisiifolia does not have a taproot, so weeding is easy. Just pull it up. Ragweed thrives in poor soil, so keeping your lawn healthy and well-fed will also discourage ragweed.

Unlike many lawn weeds, this one is indigenous to North America, not a foreign invader.

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea)

Purslane is a ground-hugging weed with fleshy leaves. It tends to thrive in dry, sandy soils.

As a lawn weed, purslane is a prolific seed producer. A chemical control regimen will address the issue at both ends: with a pre-emergent herbicide (such as dithiopyr) and a post-emergent herbicide (such as 2,4-D). Persistence is required.

If you choose to engage the enemy organically (by digging it up), you will have to be persistent, too. The tiniest pieces of vegetation in the soil will regenerate.

Yellow Dock (Rumex crispus)

Yellow or “curly” dock is one of the easier plants listed here to identify. It has a distinctive dried flower head that resembles coffee grounds. Dock is a tall plant when mature, so you may not associate it with lawns. But seeds may well sprout up as tiny plants in your lawn and especially along fence lines if you haven’t trimmed diligently.

This is another plant with a big taproot. While digging it out is possible, you’ll have to be thorough. Follow up removal by checking to see if new growth has emerged from any root fragments left behind. If you don’t care about staying organic and you’re dealing only with an isolated yellow dock plant here or there, the leaves are big enough that you could carefully daub a bit of Roundup (glyphosate) onto the foliage to kill the plant.

Clover (Trifolium ssp.)

There are many species of clover, all of which homeowners would like to banish from the lawn. This is perhaps a mistake, as clovers are actually quite healthy for a lawn. It is fragrant, resists most pests, helps to aerate the soil, and best of all, as a member of the pea family, clover actually adds nitrogen to the soil. There is a lot to be said for a lawn that contains a healthy percentage of clover within its turf-grass blend. Besides red clover (Trifolium pratense), white clover (Trifolium repens) is the most common lawn clover.

But if you are resolute about eradicating the clover mixed in with your turf grass, there are both chemical and organic means to do so. For the former, seek a broadleaf herbicide intended for use on the type of grass that you’re growing (study the label on the bottle carefully). Along with other broadleaf weeds, clover will also be killed by such herbicides.

For more environmentally friendly controls, you can simply to pull up the clover. Be aware, though that the presence of the clover in the first place indicates that your soil is lacking in nitrogen. If you remove the clover, you should add nitrogen in the form of compost or granular fertilizer. If entire patches of lawn are bare once the clover is removed, you should reseed these areas with turf grass. To prevent the reappearance of clover, keep these spots healthy and well-fed.

A common lawn weed that resembles a type of clover but isn’t one is Oxalis stricta, better-known as sourgrass or as yellow wood sorrel.

Wild Violets (Viola spp)

Wild violets are probably the best of the bunch in terms of appearance amongst the common lawn weeds featured here. In fact, some homeowners find the flowers sufficiently pretty that they decide to just leave the plants alone. Indeed, this relative of the Johnny-jump-up isn’t far inferior to Johnny in the looks department—and you won’t have to buy it. Violets may actually work very well if you want a naturalistic feel to your lawn.

But if you prefer a lawn of uniform turf grass, violets can be pulled, provided you extract the entire root system. Chemical controls include spot-treating with glyphosate (Roundup) or using a broad-leaf weedkiller such as Weed B-Gon. Fall is the best time to treat violets.

Crabgrass (Digitaria)

Many weeds have a “silver lining” in the way of offering attractive flowers, pleasant scent, or by being edible. You can find no such advantage with crabgrass.

These annual grasses can produce as many as 150,000 seeds per plant and are very hard to combat. This is not a weed that can be readily pulled, and as a grass, it is not susceptible to broadleaf herbicides. Most of the herbicides that kill crabgrass will also kill all other turf grasses.

The best solution for controlling crabgrass is using pre-emergent herbicides designed specifically for crabgrass. Crabgrass thrives in bare, poor soil, so keeping your turf grass healthy and thick is one of the best preventive measures.