Why Does Your Yard Suddenly Have Crabgrass?

A yard overwhelmed by crabgrass can quickly deteriorate. The crabgrass steals nutrients, water, oxygen, and sunlight from your lawn, turning it into a patchy yard. Furthermore, crabgrass seems to suddenly take hold of a lawn without warning.

Your yard suddenly has crabgrass because you cut the lawn too short, the grass is too patchy to prevent weed growth, and it’s the summertime when crabgrass and other weeds sprout. Crabgrass targets patchy lawns since there’s enough room to grow. Fill the patches to prevent these weeds.

In this article, you’ll find out why you suddenly have crabgrass in your yard, how you can get rid of it, and whether or not you should mow the crabgrass.

Why Do I Suddenly Have Crabgrass?

Crabgrass can seem to grow on a lawn for no apparent reason. One day your yard has a few small patches of dirt among the grass, and the next day it’s covered in crabgrass and other weeds. However, crabgrass doesn’t suddenly appear on a healthy lawn.

Keeping your lawn healthy includes these factors:

• Dense, lush grass from edge to edge without any patches
• Enough water, nutrients, healthy soil, sunlight, and oxygen
• Adequate grass height between
• Regular maintenance and removal of all weeds

You can go a long time without cutting your grass, but it will undoubtedly encourage crabgrass and other weeds to grow. When the lawn gets too long, there’s not enough space for the sunlight and oxygen to reach the roots. The grass gets patchy, revealing spaces for crabgrass to grow abundantly.

It’s important to tackle the crabgrass problem before it spreads throughout the lawn. Crabgrass is often harsh enough to remove the remaining grass in the soil, turning your yard into an unsightly mess of weeds and dirt.

How Do You Get Rid of a Crabgrass Infestation?

To get rid of a crabgrass infestation, follow these instructions:

1. Spray an herbicide on the crabgrass. Make sure it doesn’t harm the lawn, soil, or neighboring gardens. Many natural herbicides can be safely used in the yard, but I highly suggest checking the active ingredients beforehand. Too much herbicide can lead to a patchy lawn, which brings more crabgrass down the road.
2. Use a crabgrass preventer to stop the weeds from growing. I’ve covered how well crabgrass preventer works because it’s an excellent preventative step, but it also helps prevent many other weeds. Check your treatment’s label to know what else the product removes before using it.
3. Remove the dry crabgrass by hand from its roots. The Garden Counselor states crabgrass plants can spread up to 150,000 seeds, making them one of the fastest-spreading weeds around. The only way to prevent crabgrass from coming back indefinitely is to remove its roots to stop the seeds from spreading.
4. Overseed the lawn and fertilize the soil. Fill all of the patchy spots on the lawn with grass seeds. Dense, healthy grass prevents crabgrass from growing because there’s no room for it to establish its roots. Your lawn’s soil will be saturated with healthy grass roots, not crabgrass and other weeds.
5. Keep the grass mowed at the appropriate height. I always suggest mowing the lawn anywhere between 2.5 to 4 inches. Never cut the lawn more than 1/3 of its overall height at a time or you’ll risk damaging the grass. Brittle, broken grass can invite crabgrass into the soil and ruin the yard.

Remember to not overwater the soil too often. Crabgrass thrives in a wide variety of environments that could ruin your lawn. Too much water will lead to fungal growth, bacteria in the soil, and tons of weeds. Crabgrass will overrun the lawn and get rid of the existing grass.

Scotts WeedEx Crabgrass Preventer is usable on almost every type of grass and can be used during any season. Each bag has enough of the treatment to apply to up to 5,000 square feet. You can use it in a spreader or dump it evenly on the lawn by hand.

Should You Cut Crabgrass?

You shouldn’t cut crabgrass because it can spread the seeds. Mowing crabgrass will encourage it to grow horizontally rather than vertically, so it might seem shorter than usual. However, mowing and cutting these weeds doesn’t prevent them from growing.

Here are more reasons you shouldn’t cut crabgrass:

• Cutting the grass too short will allow room for more crabgrass to grow. Crabgrass often thrives in patchy lawns because there’s a lot of empty soil for it to spread. If there’s enough soil, sunlight, and water, these weeds will overtake as much of the patchy lawn as possible.
• Crabgrass needs to be sprayed with an herbicide before removing it. Mowing the lawn will remove most of the herbicide. The solution needs to drip down the stems and into the roots, but it’s very difficult for an herbicide to flow down short, trimmed grass.
• Mowing or shortening the crabgrass does next to nothing in terms of complete removal. Crabgrass can be short, long, or anywhere in between. Mowing the crabgrass basically makes it a normal part of your lawn. It’ll grow with the grass and won’t go away until you remove it.
• Shortening the crabgrass doesn’t prevent it from coming back or spreading. Crabgrass can spread quite quickly, especially during the spring and summer. Cutting the crabgrass dumps the seeds and grass blades all over the soil, encouraging further growth.
• Mowing the crabgrass blends it into your lawn and makes it more difficult to spot and remove. Crabgrass is often difficult to locate until it’s long enough to look different from the rest of the lawn. This issue typically occurs around 2 to 2.5 inches in height. Mowing the lawn too short lets the crabgrass grow and remain undiscovered in the yard.

Mowing weeds doesn’t kill them in most cases. While it can limit their seed production, you’ll have to deal with the weeds (including crabgrass) at some point in the future. I suggest spraying them with an herbicide, removing them by hand, and using a crabgrass preventer to keep the weeds at bay.