Down the Garden Path: Keep an eye out for Creeping Charlie this spring

September is a good time to eradicate creeping Charlie from the lawn.

Spring can bring out the worst in some of our lawn weeds. Creeping Charlie, also called ground ivy, often is the No. 1 complaint I have in spring while talking lawn care with homeowners and garden club members.

Creeping Charlie is a perennial broad-leaved weed that once established is one of the more difficult weeds to manage. It can quietly grow well into the fall when lawns remain green. Often, the weed gets its foothold in the home landscape not by invading the lawn right off but by establishing a “base camp” around the edge of our yard in shady areas that do not get much attention. Once there, it is easy for Creeping Charlie to send out runners into the more open and sunny parts of the lawn where it becomes more vigorous and flowers freely in the spring. Those flowers may be our first indicator that there is a real problem developing. The runners will take root at every node, making it impossible to pull up with any success.

If the lawn is in pretty good shape, when the Creeping Charlie weakens, the lawn grasses will recover and fill in. If the lawn has been overrun, many bare spots will be revealed. Without actively promoting lawn grasses over weeds, these areas will often grow a different weed or Creeping Charlie will just come back.

Treatments can be made in the spring as the weed is in bloom and a second treatment a couple of weeks later. The other window of opportunity will be late summer or early fall. Both times, the grass will be actively growing and fill in as the weed fails and dies. Recognize that April, May and June are better treatment months in the spring and September, October and November are better months for fall applications.

Treatments are made with combination products that work together to manage the Creeping Charlie. Most often the combination products contain 2,4-D, MCPP and Dicamba as active ingredients. These combination products also are beneficial for controlling other broad-leaved weeds commonly found in home lawns. (Always read and follow label and safety instructions.)

Additional cultural management techniques include removing no more than a third of the grass blade at any mowing, and mowing with a sharp mower blade. Raising the cutting height up will allow the lawn to be more competitive against weeds. This suggests that in the spring and fall the mowing frequency will increase to accommodate the increased growth rate of the lawn.

Have a question for the Master Gardeners? Residents can contact the Kendall County Master Gardener volunteers on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. by calling 630-553-5823, stopping in at 7775B Route 47, Yorkville, or emailing uiemg-kendall@illinois.edu. For helpful hints on what to include in your email, visit go.illinois.edu/HelpDeskMGdkk.