Great video Sam, very informative, down to earth and honest and most of all never boring 🙂 I'm having the same issues here in Scotland, as well as pink patch/red thread due to all the rain and I've resigned myself to just live with the poa. If I started digging it all out it would take forever to get it good again (not that it's ever been great) and even then it would reappear elsewhere. I've started raking before mowing, especially if it's morning. This to get the dew off the grass to help stop the fungal growth and also to stand up those weed grasses ready for the chop! Keep up the great work and videos. All the best mate 🙂
Hey Mick, thanks mate! Feels nice to hear that it´s not just me with all the Poa 😅 it´s crazy this year, the lawn is soo patchy, I´ll try to show you in a video. But it is what it is, it´s just grass, I rather drink whisky or play soccer with my son than dig out Poa all day long :) Thanks for dropping by dude!
I have the same problem here in the UK ,like you say its gone crazy this year. Following your recent video on pre germinating seeds in bucket of soil I commented I was going to give it a try ,it worked brilliant. After 3 days being on the lawn I had grass coming through and now almost totally filled out. Of course after all your warnings I didn't mix. Ienough so have another batch almost ready to go. Only way I'll ever repair holes from now on.
Hi Sam I have the same problem and do the same rake and cut maybe 2-3 times a week and it really does help with less standing up stolens keep on smiling and getting on with it
Hey Mate, I think this is the best approach. Pulling it all the time and reseeding does work too, but if you have it all over, then it´s never ending seeding and watering. As you say, just do this, keep on smiling and just live with it and control it as best as we can :)
Thanks for the tips, Sam ! Your videos are always very informative and entertaining at the same time. No poa for me at the moment, but it is good to know these tips just in case. By the way, do you know if the lawn in the Euro Football is real ? It looks so nice...
Hi Lucy! Thanks so much! Sounds awesome, if only my lawn was without poa! Some parts are looking very patchy with poa. The turf for the matches are real, they had some issues with them since they had so much rain and they use the turfs so much during the tournament. But they said they put a lot of effort in the turf for the finals and it looked amazing!
Yes I agree, I live next to farmland and als the Poa Annua seeds and Meadowgrass just fly over with the wind.. Before I was on my knees trying to remove everything. Now I rake it and mow it. I have the same Greenworks mower and accesories. Great tools for the price! love it. Keep up the nice vids. PS: I just filled in some empty spots using the pre-germinate method! #kudos ;)
Hey mate! thanks a lot, glad the pre-germination worked well for you! Yeah, I think raking it and mowing is the best solution. It will help stop the spread and you can spend your valuable time doing other things rather than pulling Poa and reseeding all day :)
Perennial Poa annua is a thing here. Some folks give up and seed Poa reptans which is a creeping bluegrass, it looks like annual bluegrass but it will all look the same. It is called "Two putt" over here.
I actually looked at some perennial poa, it didn´t look too bad at all, not at all the same "ugly" lime green colour as annual poa. Maybe we should all just get poa and quackgrass lawns, I bet they will outcompete everything else :)
Sometimes the best advice is the boring advice. I have a bosch rotak and an allett liberty 35 and yes the roller makes some nice stripes but if I had to choose one it would be the bosch rotary. Cylinder mowers are a bit hyped and unless you cut lower than about 3/4 inch, you are probably better off with a rotary.
I have what I suspect to be poa (Annua and/or triv) as well as quack grass so this video is of great interest to me. Actually I find pretty much everything you post to be very valuable to me as I’m in Canada and have very similar restrictions as you as far as herbicides are concerned. I would be very interested in your perspective on trying to live with these weed grasses and follow best practices to try to crowd them out as much as possible vs doing a full glyphosate renovation. In particular for meiosis have a new bag of top notch seed I’m hesitating to out down because if I do need to do a renovation I’d hate to kill off the new grass. Any thoughts? Thanks and keep up the good work!
Hey Tod, thanks mate, glad you find the videos helpful. Canada and Sweden definitely seem to have the same restrictions, even if we didn´t have them I wouldn´t use all those chemicals, it´s just grass, not worth it to just treat the symptoms. Depends what type of grass your existing grass is and what you have in that new bag?
@@todmanning Awesome, then you can just do whatever you feel like mate, perennial rye is so fast to germinate so you can either a full reno and get rid of everything and getting a fresh start with the same type of seed, or do a partial reno, perennial rye will grow fast and crowd out everything else fast. Usually different perennial rye seeds also blend well together so, I would say both options would work just fine.
You have to stand up the blades and cut once in awhile. It’s a must. About every 5 mows for me. And you vacuum the debris that stands to give a discolored look.
Usually try to do that once in a while with the cylinder mower, but it´s not great for that. Will do it more now with the rotary, think it will make a big change.
Hey Mate, I had actually never heard of it to be honest. Since almost ALL herbicides are banned here in Sweden we really do not know much about herbicides. I am just assuming Velocity is also not permitted, but I´ll check it out, thanks.
VIery helpful Sam. I will give it a try. I have exactly the same problem with poa and crab grass. Totally agree with you on the rotary mower. I have the same Allett (Liberty 43) now discontinued !!! as you and I also have an Aldi rotary mower which is fine and an older Hayter rotary mower and I am using the rotary mowers more than the Allett as I am cutting on a higher cut and using the Allett even on the highest cut is to low at the moment with the wet weather. I'm too scared to use the Allett at the moment. I also have the Greenworks scarifier which is fantastic. Bought this as the it uses the same battery as the Liberty 43.
Hey mate! Sounds like a sweet setup you have! I was actually looking into a Hayter mower, they seem so good! But also very pricey for a second mower :) I think I might just be going the same way as you, cutting more and more with the rotary, I usually don´t mow that low anyways, I also have the Allett on the highest setting, cylinder mowers are awesome, but to get good value out of them you really need to be cutting lower I think.
When people overseed each year, you open up the sward and weed seed bank. The best control you can ever get is with creeping bent, pure bent or fescue bent. The grass species are the only things to control it best. And perennial poa works even better
Hey David! Fancy seeing you here 😊 I watch all your videos, even though I have a lot of rye 😉 Forgot to mention the scarifying part. Good feedback! How does bent do during harsh winters? I'm guessing UK winters are a bit milder than ours here in Sweden.
@@SamsLawn Hi Sam, when I have a few minutes spare, I do see whose making videos and your honesty and truth often makes better watching than some other YTubers. Bent covers most of the UK, as its native and due to the ph and long term conditions of the soils here. Ryegrass fails here as a guarantee and has far less skill required. Many rye lawns look ok now (its only July !) and wont look great for too much longer. Bentgrass does well in winter and is the reason why the UK is so green with no effort (our countryside never gets re-seeded, ever) Rye is part of a transition grass in many countries of course, where some species go dormant, but its part of a commercial failure aimed at buying seed, year on year)
Personally I'm like Rorschach: never compromise. Maybe I will lose in the end. But I had a lot of Poa coming out of winter, it had me busy for a few weeks, I get them all out. Everytime you think you had them all, more show up. But now I don't see anything really for many weeks as well. We'll see.
If you only have a few plant here and there, then you can definitely just keep pulling them and seed. I usually do that and it works pretty well, not 100% but close enough. But this year I don´t know what happened, it just exploded! Probably because my lawn was so weak during spring so it gave the Poa a better chance to establish.
I have a problem with quackgrass as well sam. I have learned to live with it😅. I dont think i have any poa but i mow just short enough to not see the seed heads anyway. Do u think your renovation last year sparked the growth of the poa?
Quackgrass is actually easier to deal with, you can mow it low and deplete it and keep it from spreading. The Poa though, such a hassle! I think the state of my lawn this spring gave the Poa a chance to germinate. Also the fact that I decided to plant Kentucky Blue Grass. Most of the Poa spread is on the side where the KBG took forever to germinate. Rye will normally germinate and take over before the Poa ever gets a chance. But what can you do, at least it´s green :D
I know mate, I agree! So far no other type of grass has beaten the RPR to be honest, it really pops! And it grows so fast that it doesn´t give Poa and other weeds space. But I want to see if these will do better over winter. If not and I have to reseed anyways, then I might just go back to the RPR since the lawn is so full of Poa at the moment, soo patchy...
@@adrianphotovisions2308 no plnat survives roundup, but it dont work on seed only living plants. so if you hve seed in the soil which is very likely then yeah your get some more, even birds can poop them out on your lawn so keeping it 100% poa free is quite a challenge
Avoid core aeration if you do not want dormant seeds coming up from under the turf. Solid tine when the ground if tending towards dryness because this will shatter or break the soil without lifting it to the surface. Large area get a firm in with a vibrating Aero- vator.
I will never accept poa annua or poa trivialis! Lifting the grass works better with a scarifying rake. After having lifted it with a rake just pull it by hand (or with a kitchen fork).
Good for you mate! Go get em! If you have a few plants here and there then pulling it definitely is worth it! But this year it´s just too much, I rather spend my time doing something else this year.
haha, well, there are other things in life to do as well, not just pulling Poa and seeding :D But for sure, I will give it a good fight, go down swinging :)
Great video Sam, very informative, down to earth and honest and most of all never boring 🙂 I'm having the same issues here in Scotland, as well as pink patch/red thread due to all the rain and I've resigned myself to just live with the poa. If I started digging it all out it would take forever to get it good again (not that it's ever been great) and even then it would reappear elsewhere. I've started raking before mowing, especially if it's morning. This to get the dew off the grass to help stop the fungal growth and also to stand up those weed grasses ready for the chop! Keep up the great work and videos. All the best mate 🙂
Hey Mick, thanks mate! Feels nice to hear that it´s not just me with all the Poa 😅
it´s crazy this year, the lawn is soo patchy, I´ll try to show you in a video. But it is what it is, it´s just grass, I rather drink whisky or play soccer with my son than dig out Poa all day long :)
Thanks for dropping by dude!
Not a boring video at all - thanks very much for taking the time to put this together!
Thanks a lot, appreciate it! Glad I didn´t bore you :)
I have the same problem here in the UK ,like you say its gone crazy this year. Following your recent video on pre germinating seeds in bucket of soil I commented I was going to give it a try ,it worked brilliant. After 3 days being on the lawn I had grass coming through and now almost totally filled out. Of course after all your warnings I didn't mix. Ienough so have another batch almost ready to go. Only way I'll ever repair holes from now on.
Awesome dude! Sounds great! Glad it worked well for you too!
Hi Sam I have the same problem and do the same rake and cut maybe 2-3 times a week and it really does help with less standing up stolens keep on smiling and getting on with it
Hey Mate, I think this is the best approach. Pulling it all the time and reseeding does work too, but if you have it all over, then it´s never ending seeding and watering. As you say, just do this, keep on smiling and just live with it and control it as best as we can :)
Thanks for the tips, Sam ! Your videos are always very informative and entertaining at the same time. No poa for me at the moment, but it is good to know these tips just in case. By the way, do you know if the lawn in the Euro Football is real ? It looks so nice...
Hi Lucy! Thanks so much! Sounds awesome, if only my lawn was without poa! Some parts are looking very patchy with poa. The turf for the matches are real, they had some issues with them since they had so much rain and they use the turfs so much during the tournament. But they said they put a lot of effort in the turf for the finals and it looked amazing!
Yes I agree, I live next to farmland and als the Poa Annua seeds and Meadowgrass just fly over with the wind.. Before I was on my knees trying to remove everything. Now I rake it and mow it. I have the same Greenworks mower and accesories. Great tools for the price! love it. Keep up the nice vids. PS: I just filled in some empty spots using the pre-germinate method! #kudos ;)
Hey mate! thanks a lot, glad the pre-germination worked well for you!
Yeah, I think raking it and mowing is the best solution. It will help stop the spread and you can spend your valuable time doing other things rather than pulling Poa and reseeding all day :)
Good info as per usual! What about your robot mower? It didn't get to the poa either?
I don't really like to use it when I have this much Poa, it's just going to spread even more seeds from the seed heads it cuts 🤷🏻♂️
Perennial Poa annua is a thing here.
Some folks give up and seed Poa reptans which is a creeping bluegrass, it looks like annual bluegrass but it will all look the same.
It is called "Two putt" over here.
I actually looked at some perennial poa, it didn´t look too bad at all, not at all the same "ugly" lime green colour as annual poa. Maybe we should all just get poa and quackgrass lawns, I bet they will outcompete everything else :)
Sometimes the best advice is the boring advice. I have a bosch rotak and an allett liberty 35 and yes the roller makes some nice stripes but if I had to choose one it would be the bosch rotary. Cylinder mowers are a bit hyped and unless you cut lower than about 3/4 inch, you are probably better off with a rotary.
I agree, cylinder mowing is hyped. It is fun when you mow low but for most people the rotary mower is the way to go, 100%!
I have what I suspect to be poa (Annua and/or triv) as well as quack grass so this video is of great interest to me. Actually I find pretty much everything you post to be very valuable to me as I’m in Canada and have very similar restrictions as you as far as herbicides are concerned. I would be very interested in your perspective on trying to live with these weed grasses and follow best practices to try to crowd them out as much as possible vs doing a full glyphosate renovation. In particular for meiosis have a new bag of top notch seed I’m hesitating to out down because if I do need to do a renovation I’d hate to kill off the new grass.
Any thoughts?
Thanks and keep up the good work!
Hey Tod, thanks mate, glad you find the videos helpful. Canada and Sweden definitely seem to have the same restrictions, even if we didn´t have them I wouldn´t use all those chemicals, it´s just grass, not worth it to just treat the symptoms. Depends what type of grass your existing grass is and what you have in that new bag?
@@SamsLawn thanks for getting back to me. The existing grass as well as the new stuff I want to use is 100% perennial rye.
@@todmanning Awesome, then you can just do whatever you feel like mate, perennial rye is so fast to germinate so you can either a full reno and get rid of everything and getting a fresh start with the same type of seed, or do a partial reno, perennial rye will grow fast and crowd out everything else fast. Usually different perennial rye seeds also blend well together so, I would say both options would work just fine.
You have to stand up the blades and cut once in awhile. It’s a must. About every 5 mows for me. And you vacuum the debris that stands to give a discolored look.
Usually try to do that once in a while with the cylinder mower, but it´s not great for that. Will do it more now with the rotary, think it will make a big change.
I'm surprised you didn't suggest the herbicide Velocity PM for control of Poa Annua and Trivialis.
Hey Mate, I had actually never heard of it to be honest. Since almost ALL herbicides are banned here in Sweden we really do not know much about herbicides. I am just assuming Velocity is also not permitted, but I´ll check it out, thanks.
VIery helpful Sam. I will give it a try. I have exactly the same problem with poa and crab grass. Totally agree with you on the rotary mower. I have the same Allett (Liberty 43) now discontinued !!! as you and I also have an Aldi rotary mower which is fine and an older Hayter rotary mower and I am using the rotary mowers more than the Allett as I am cutting on a higher cut and using the Allett even on the highest cut is to low at the moment with the wet weather. I'm too scared to use the Allett at the moment. I also have the Greenworks scarifier which is fantastic. Bought this as the it uses the same battery as the Liberty 43.
Hey mate! Sounds like a sweet setup you have! I was actually looking into a Hayter mower, they seem so good! But also very pricey for a second mower :)
I think I might just be going the same way as you, cutting more and more with the rotary, I usually don´t mow that low anyways, I also have the Allett on the highest setting, cylinder mowers are awesome, but to get good value out of them you really need to be cutting lower I think.
When people overseed each year, you open up the sward and weed seed bank. The best control you can ever get is with creeping bent, pure bent or fescue bent. The grass species are the only things to control it best. And perennial poa works even better
Hey David! Fancy seeing you here 😊
I watch all your videos, even though I have a lot of rye 😉
Forgot to mention the scarifying part. Good feedback! How does bent do during harsh winters? I'm guessing UK winters are a bit milder than ours here in Sweden.
@@SamsLawn Hi Sam, when I have a few minutes spare, I do see whose making videos and your honesty and truth often makes better watching than some other YTubers. Bent covers most of the UK, as its native and due to the ph and long term conditions of the soils here. Ryegrass fails here as a guarantee and has far less skill required. Many rye lawns look ok now (its only July !) and wont look great for too much longer. Bentgrass does well in winter and is the reason why the UK is so green with no effort (our countryside never gets re-seeded, ever) Rye is part of a transition grass in many countries of course, where some species go dormant, but its part of a commercial failure aimed at buying seed, year on year)
Personally I'm like Rorschach: never compromise. Maybe I will lose in the end. But I had a lot of Poa coming out of winter, it had me busy for a few weeks, I get them all out. Everytime you think you had them all, more show up. But now I don't see anything really for many weeks as well. We'll see.
If you only have a few plant here and there, then you can definitely just keep pulling them and seed. I usually do that and it works pretty well, not 100% but close enough. But this year I don´t know what happened, it just exploded! Probably because my lawn was so weak during spring so it gave the Poa a better chance to establish.
I have a problem with quackgrass as well sam. I have learned to live with it😅. I dont think i have any poa but i mow just short enough to not see the seed heads anyway. Do u think your renovation last year sparked the growth of the poa?
Quackgrass is actually easier to deal with, you can mow it low and deplete it and keep it from spreading. The Poa though, such a hassle!
I think the state of my lawn this spring gave the Poa a chance to germinate. Also the fact that I decided to plant Kentucky Blue Grass. Most of the Poa spread is on the side where the KBG took forever to germinate. Rye will normally germinate and take over before the Poa ever gets a chance. But what can you do, at least it´s green :D
I heard potassium silicate (for example in Shogun Silicon) makes the poa stand and then it can be hovered like you did.
Oh really?! Sounds like something I need to try! Would be great if works! Thanks for the tip!
Thanks for sharing always informative thank you Sam 👍
Hey Robert, thanks mate, appreciate it.
Will you have the same problem in a 100% sand lawn?
For sure, gold courses have the same problem and they have mostly sand based turfs.
@@SamsLawn 😢
Iam crying now, same here in south Germany this year😂
haha seems to be everywhere this year! Never seen this much!
Last Years lawn looks better. Will be go back to full PR?
I know mate, I agree! So far no other type of grass has beaten the RPR to be honest, it really pops! And it grows so fast that it doesn´t give Poa and other weeds space. But I want to see if these will do better over winter. If not and I have to reseed anyways, then I might just go back to the RPR since the lawn is so full of Poa at the moment, soo patchy...
Great advice....."didn't buy it just for the poa...I'm not that vain (evil laugh...yes I am..!!)" 😂
hahahaha yeah... maybe just a little bit :D
Verticutting, scarifying, rotary, cylinder, rotary and repeat :-)
haha helt rätt!! Sen kommer skiten ändå tillbaka 😂😉 LÅT MIG VINNA!!! 😂😂
I have it all over this season as well 😢
It´s really exploded this year!
I hate Poa!!! My lawn will get a dose of roundup in the Autumn. I have heard that maybe Poa can survive even that
no it wont but roundup will not kill dormant seeds
@@SuperChalkster thats what I mean, it may return even after Roundup
@@adrianphotovisions2308 Probably even worse since the competition is then gone.
@@adrianphotovisions2308 no plnat survives roundup, but it dont work on seed only living plants. so if you hve seed in the soil which is very likely then yeah your get some more, even birds can poop them out on your lawn so keeping it 100% poa free is quite a challenge
Avoid core aeration if you do not want dormant seeds coming up from under the turf.
Solid tine when the ground if tending towards dryness because this will shatter or break the soil without lifting it to the surface.
Large area get a firm in with a vibrating Aero- vator.
What about a robot?
A robot will spread the seeds even more unfortunately. So unless you do not collect the clippings (seed heads) you will help it spread even more.
I will never accept poa annua or poa trivialis! Lifting the grass works better with a scarifying rake. After having lifted it with a rake just pull it by hand (or with a kitchen fork).
Good for you mate! Go get em!
If you have a few plants here and there then pulling it definitely is worth it! But this year it´s just too much, I rather spend my time doing something else this year.
if you accept living with it then you have accepted defeat. come autumn dig it out and re seed. your win the war eventually, lol
haha, well, there are other things in life to do as well, not just pulling Poa and seeding :D
But for sure, I will give it a good fight, go down swinging :)
@@SamsLawn me too lol
comment!
Nice comment! ;)
@@SamsLawn You asked for it! ;) I like your videos Sam.
You can not live with it...! Down on your knees.
haha, well if it were only a few plants then for sure, but when it spreads this much, there are better things to do with your time :D