Beginner Gardening: Palm tree problem, need help, 1 by Groundscreeper

Groundscreeper wrote:
I’ve begun maintenance on a turf area that I’m trying to rescue. It appears to have been tall fescue at one time, but when I came into the picture in early spring, the turf area looked more like a cabbage patch with all the plantain and broadleaf weeds. It’s been two weeks since I applied a product containing 2,4-d and triclopyr so now the dying weeds are clearing up enough to give us a look at what else we’ve got — namely, palm shoots. The lawn is surrounded by washingtonia palms!
I came here hoping there was some advice, perhaps some product, that would take out the palms without killing the turf.

Obviously the product labeled for broadleaf weeds has no effect—palms are monocots, like grass, and the herbicides for broadleafs go after dicots. You’d need something labeled for grassy weeds, like a product that kills crabgrass, dallisgrass, goosegrass, etc — without killing the fescue. I’m not sure if something like that exists.

Mowing doesn’t kill the little suckers. What looks like turf from a distance is actually a million palm shoots that get mowed regularly.

So far I like Sammut’s post...his approach seems to be timing of raking up the seeds and pulling out the shoots from the ones you didn’t get.

I’m thinking there must be a strategy with pruning the trees. If the trees were pruned at just the right time, maybe you could keep them from flowering and producing seed. However, I’m sure that could get expensive.

Anyhow, I’ll post an update if I have a breakthrough!