As the weather begins to warm up, everyone is encouraged to take a moment to consider their weed management plans for the spring. Summer annual weeds will start to germinate and emerge over the coming weeks and months, and proper planning is key for staying ahead of schedule.

Lawns

Preemergence herbicides are an effective tool for managing summer annual weeds in Louisiana lawns. Remember that preemergence herbicides are those that need to be applied before weeds emerge. Generally, preemergence herbicides need to be applied to lawns in Louisiana before soil temperatures reach 55 F for a sustained period over multiple days in a row. General guidelines for spring preemergence herbicide application timings to lawns in Louisiana are in late January or early February in south Louisiana, and mid- to late February in central and north Louisiana. However, the weather can be unpredictable. It is important to monitor local weather and soil conditions to plan optimal application timings. As always, review the product label before application and ensure all directions and restrictions are followed.

Landscape Beds

There are several important considerations for weed management in landscape plantings. First, ensure that all existing perennial and winter annual weeds are removed before planting new installations, or early in the year for existing installations. Hand removal is usually the most effective strategy for this purpose. Next, consider mulch. In the case of existing installations, inspect mulch and plan to add more if it has degraded. If you can see bare soil, you need new mulch. For new installations, ensure that you are using an appropriate amount of mulch. For weed management purposes, at least three inches of mulch is likely to do a better job of suppressing annual weeds and will go a long way towards keeping weeds out of your landscape beds throughout the spring and summer.

As with lawns, consider applying preemergence herbicides to keep summer annual weeds at bay. Ensure that all labeled instructions are followed when applying preemergence herbicides to ornamentals, including checking for tolerance of present ornamental species, checking the list of species controlled to ensure common weed species are listed and checking for application timing relative to ornamental planting (pretransplant/posttransplant). All of that information can be found on the herbicide product label.

Fruit and Vegetable Gardens

For fruit and vegetable gardens, one of the most important weed management considerations is site preparation. Ensure that garden sites are completely free of weeds at the time of planting. If weeds are present when the garden is planted, then weed management is likely to be extremely challenging all year. Furthermore, it is critical to stay on schedule for weed management in gardens. Weeds can quickly take over garden plots if left unattended for any stretch of time; thus, ensure garden plots are regularly inspected for weed intrusion. Consider cultivating between rows or plants, and hand remove any weeds that germinate too close to plants for removal by cultivation. Weed management is easiest and most effective when weeds are small.