Henbit Winter Lawn

This is my 3rd winter fighting henbit. I've tried spot weed killer, Weed B Gone, Round-up, pre-emergent weed killer and nothing seens to put a dent in it.

Anyone have success getting rid of henbit?

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Lamium amplexicaule is a winter annual. For the most part, it can be hand pulled very easily because there is only one taproot. You might want to consider doing as I do and just wait until this spring when the rains come and go outside after a good rain and hand pull as many as you can get your hands on. I never allow them to go to seed. The other deal is that right now is the time to apply a pre-emergent and then reapply it in about 60 days. I use corn gluten meal exclusively. It’s environmentally friendly, exceedingly cheap (I like that), and it works as well if not better than any commercially available pre-emergent product I have found. There is a thread somewhere here that discusses corn meal in depth. The search engines aren’t working for me right now or I’d go locate it and provide a link. I wrote the posts so if you are interested search using my user name and see if the posts pop up.

If you choose to use a chemical, choosing one that was designed to get this type of weed as well as timing the application is going to be paramount or you will be tossing your money out the window. Here are your choices for a chemical in my opinion-
Triclopyr has little or no impact on grasses. It’s the active ingredient in Garlon 3A, Crossbow, Remedy, and the more readily available BrushBGone. The way it works is really genius in that it mimics the hormone auxin and basically circuitry overloads the plant with uncontrolled growth which results in its demise. BrushBGon is a great product for some broad leaf weeds and woodies. Clopyralid is used frequently to control annual and perennial broadleaf weeds. It works much the same way that Triclopyr does. Common brand names in which Clopyralid is the active ingredient would be Transline and Reclaim which are going to be pretty hard to get your hands on unless you can locate them online somewhere. Good news is that there are combo products out there that include both triclopyr and clopyralid which are Hornet, Accent Gold, Curtail, and Scorpion so if you’ve got to go on line and get something for your henbit; you might as well get a combo which will be the most effective against killing off the Henbit.

Although Triclopyr is a short life chemical, I don’t feel Clopyralid is. I don’t particularly care for this product at all because of the residue. Sadly, it is one of the only active ingredients I know of that works on Thistles.

That being said, please don’t use these chemicals on a day when there is any wind. You would want to spray the Henbit before they flower and only when the air temps are going to be above 60F for about a week but not higher than around 80F. Best to have no rain in the forecast for at least a day or so too. Regarding the air temps being in the range mentioned above; at lower temps, many plants go dormant and at higher temps many plants shut down to conserve energy so try as we might to treat them with chemicals… applying them at the wrong time renders them ineffective. Another trick I have learned is to apply chemicals around 11am when plants are photosynthesizing their little brains out. Applying at this time of day means you can generally get by with using considerably less chemical.

Thanks for your advice! I mowed it all down with a bagger on my lawnmower on Thursday because it was flowering. I bought some Bayer Advanced Southern Weed Killer and plan to spray the heck out of when when it starts new growth. I figure new growth will be more receptive to absorbing the chemical than old growth. If this doesn't work, I will definitly try the products you suggested.

I can't pull it up by hand .. I have benign positional vertigo which keeps me from bending over a lot. I have tried using my Weed Hound, but it leaves too many roots. Works perfectly on the dandelions though.

Thanks!

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The chemical in your Bayer product is Dicamba. It's a benzoic acid herbicide. I don't believe absorption rates will differ based on new growth/old growth but you might want to treat as much surface as is available so please do let it grow out a bit before treating.

http://www.walterreeves.com/uploads/pdf/chemprod.pdf#search='Bayer%20advanced%20weed%20killer'

Please come back and share how you fare with this product.

What a terrific link! Thanks!

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Hey no fair! Your user name is so unique you can sign off with a simple X!