Selective Herbicides For Lawns – Lawn Care Tips

When you talk about Herbicides for lawns, you need to understand the difference between selective and non-selective turf herbicides.

This difference is quite important considering your lawn can suffer drastic consequences with the application of the wrong herbicide on your lawn.

The number of times we have heard people, mostly home owners and some landscaper professionals, applying Roundup (or its generic equivalent, glyphosate) to get rid of clover and other weed nasties in their lawn. Sure enough, two to three weeks later they end up with large dead patches in their once “pride and joy”.

The fact that people can destroy their lawn with the application of the incorrect herbicide means there is a lack of understanding of the active ingredients in the different herbicide products.

The definition of a Selective Turf Herbicide is one where the herbicide targets and kills particular weeds (the target weeds) in a given lawn situation.

Selective Turf Herbicides vary in that there are many different selective herbicides that are safe for different turf grasses. The herbicide (that is, the Chemspray product, Kleen-Lawn) that can be used for the selective removal of dandelions & clover in couch turf is harmful to buffalo turf (otherwise known as St Augustine turf). So, if you are interested in selectively removing dandelions and clover from buffalo / St Augustine turf, then you would need to use the equivalent of the Chemspray product called Bin-Die.

The definition of a Non-Selective Herbicide is one where the herbicide targets and kills all weeds and turf indiscriminately. A good example of a Non-Selective Herbicide is Round-Up (or as it is generically known as glyphosate).