Why is it so?

[supersparky]

Can anyone explain to me why the weeds and other unwanted stuff in my front lawn continues to grow, even though the grass stopped growing when it started to cool off for winter??
I suppose it's the same out the back, but I don't look there very often.

[jon_d]

Funny how blokes refer to their "lawn"

Back yard???? Try using a mirror Dave... avoid convex ones, because it will send you into shock.

[supersparky]

You have to call it lawn Jon. I don't think there is a collective term for a hotch potch of weeds of various types and a few different types of grasses. Until I stopped working full time it was just a dustbowl in summer and weeds in winter.

[jon_d]

oooohhh. You're talking about the garden lawn. Why didn't you say that?

[T1 Terry]

You have to call it lawn Jon. I don't think there is a collective term for a hotch potch of weeds of various types and a few different types of grasses. Until I stopped working full time it was just a dustbowl in summer and weeds in winter.

Not many bowling greens or fairways around people's houses Dave, and why did things change when you stopped working ..... did you have more time to water it or something

As long as there are no three cornered jacks, bindis and scotch thistle in the mix, and a lawn mower can actually cut through the stems of what ever is growing there, it's a lawn ..... Anything that survives being beaten with mower blades till bits come off, is a good choice for a lawn. Eventually, the one that can handle the most abuse will be the dominant plant in the lawn ..... sand and rocks seem to rate highly in any lawn I'm involved with .....

If you have enough time on your hands to pull out the growth you don't want and plant what you do want .... you simply have too much time on your hands

T1 Terry

[Dot]

Better to just let the Kikuyu do it's thing. We have Santa Anna until the weeds decided to take residence, Got the lawn man out and he came every 2 weeks to treat the weeds, it now looks like a barren wasteland. Maybe the weeds come down in the rain.

[supersparky]

No Dot, the weeds grow out of the dirt. Our lawn has always been crap, no matter what I try. One day, if funds permit, I'll get it all stripped and new turf laid.
No I won't, I hate it.

[jon_d]

The neighbours who have moved, would spend hours in the garden.

The front lawn under the huge Oaks and Tulip trees used to be this beautiful shaded area of thick velvet moss. One day, it was ripped up and planted with grass. "MCG turf" I was proudly told.

Well, the MCG turf couldn't handle the shade and depending on who you talk too, annoyingly (or gleefully) the moss returned.

[T1 Terry]

In the lawn at Lake Illawarra, it was a battle between next doors crab grass and the Kikuyu, only the three cornered jacks managed to survive, but Brian dug those out fairly regularly so the lawn was sort of ok.
The lawn at Purnong Rd started from a collection of rocks, sand and three cornered jacks, but water being pumped from the river turned it into quite a good Kikuyu lawn, that stuff strangles anything ..... till the pump died, then it returned to sand, but in no time, it recovered again .... then Margaret killed half of it with a leaking spray pack of Round Up, left alone for another few weeks and the three cornered jacks would have died, but it recovered from that ...... then the fire, summer heat, excavators doing donuts on it .... it might be regrowing now ..... but it will be Kikuyu that will win the day.

The lawn in front of the works shop was sand, sand and more sand, the drought and heat killed it all ..... but the first time I emptied the washing machine water on it, up came the clover in the patches the water soaked, then the Kikuyu, the rain came, clover every where, then the Kikuyu was starting to break through .....

It might not be the prettiest grass, but it is the toughest by far, and all the runners that head out across the path and the garden can be thrown on the bare patches, and they fill in real fast as well ....

T1 Terry

[supersparky]

So, why do the weeds still grow when it's too cold for the grass to grow?