Knowledgebase

What type of "grass" is this and how to control it? #864550

Asked April 15, 2024, 8:20 AM EDT

Hi: The grass-like plant in the attached photos with its reddish/purplish lower stem and branching leaves is all over my yard in various and large clumps. It certainly does not blend in with my turf grass. Any idea what it is and how best to control it (especially without hurting the pollinators)? Even where I have mowed it at the same height as the rest of the lawn, it still looks out of place. Extra: Along the road edge I did get what I am pretty sure is wheat growing in my yard with its hollow stem where some road contractors placed straw over the seed where they repaired the damage they did to my lawn. Since wheat is an annual, after pulling lots of it by hand, I decided to simply mow the rest. Hopefully that was a good choice. However, the "grass" in the question above seems to be different than the "wheat" and the grass in the photos is at many places far from the road. All help is appreciated. Thank you!

Carroll County Maryland

Expert Response

Hi,

Grass ID is difficult to narrow down and it helps to sometimes see seed heads, the ligules and the hairs along the stalks.

We can see what looks like the typical large ligules of Roughstalk Bluegrass of Poa trivialis in these photos and the purple stem is another tell tale trait.  It rarely produces seed heads since it can mix in with regular grass seed mix and is mown at the same rate so pre-emergent herbicides like barricade are not effective.

It is difficult to get rid of and if you have a large population we recommend either treating it with a non-selective herbicide which would also kill surrounding grass and overseeding, or aerating and overseeding in the fall with a high quality grass seed mix which hopefully wouldn't contain any roughstalk seeds. Eventually the desired grass seed mix would overtime out compete the weed species.

Alternatively you could cut strips of it out and replace with strips of sod.

The first link will give you further guidance. Let us know if you have further questions.

Emily

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