Dealing with Invasive Lawn Grass

Are you sick of invasive lawn grass trespassing in your yard? You’ve put in all this work to make your lawn the pride of your garden and little sprouts of other grasses appear, or your neighbours overfriendly grass starts to creep in.

A lawn invasion can be from next door, from a previous lawn that hadn’t completely died off, or from grass seeds that have been brought in by wind, bird droppings or shoes or fur. No matter which way the grass gets into your lawn, it’s still trespassing and it’s not exactly pretty.

So, what can you do?

For small amounts, you can hand pick them from your lawn. You can use sprays but you need to be careful that most warm-season grasses are easily damaged by nonselective herbicides. If you do want to use spray, for bigger invasions, you should lift the runners and paint them with the herbicide to not touch your own lawn.

There isn’t much you can do to prevent loose grass seeds blowing into your yard, except to keep on top of them.

To keep your neighbour’s invasive lawn grass from your yard in the long term, the best option is to create a barrier.

Brick or timber barriers are most common but an aluminium or heavy plastic edging will give a cleaner look and still go deep enough into the ground to prevent runners and rhizomes from getting through.

You can also create a spade edging. Using a spade, you can shape a dirt trough between the grasses. This often looks quite bare and thus, isn’t ideal for front yards.

Another option is to let the two lawns mingle a little so they blend into each other. This creates a soft transition between the lawns but will need attention occasionally so that it remains neat and the runners don’t grow too far into the other lawn.

Keeping your yard neat and tidy can be hard sometimes, especially when your neighbour’s lawn is fighting against you.