How To Get Rid Of Wild Violets Organically
There are several organic ways to deal will violets on your lawn. Lets have a look at some of them.
1. Tolerating And Living With The Wild Violets
Even though its a crazy idea its by far the simplest and the most cost-effective way to deal with wild violets. All you have to do is try and enhance grass lawn wellbeing to give it a competing chance against the weeds.
Furthermore, not everybody considers these beautiful flowers a weed, and if managed properly, you can live with them peacefully.
2. Removing Wild Violets by Hand
Fresh and young violets flowers are relatively simple to pull out by hand. For older flowers, you can use opt for a garden fork to help you dig them out. However, this will only work on a small area or if the flowers are scattered across the lawn.
Plus, it is not easy to pull out the flowers completely with their roots, meaning they will grow back again after a short while. It is recommended that you follow up this method with a concrete plan to enhance the health of the lawn to help choke out new weeds.
3. Using homemade Wild Violet Weed Killer
You can also use a homemade weed killer mixture to kill violet flowers on your lawn. Mix horticultural vinegar and water and spray the solution directly to the flowering foliage. This homemade herbicide is believed to have an 80% success rate on wild violet.
How To Kill Wild Violets Growing In The Yard Without Killing The Grass
21 September, 2017
Wild violet has a reputation of being notoriously hard to kill. But most of that reputation is because of the use of the wrong type of herbicide. Wild violet is only responsive to post-emergent broad leaf herbicides that contains triclopyr and is listed as safe to use on lawns. This type of herbicide is much more effective on wild violets than any other. However, wild violet is stubborn and it will likely take more than one application applied over more than one season to get rid of the plant for good.
Mow your lawn and the wild violet. By cutting the wild violet back, you will force it to start growing rapidly. Perennial weeds like wild violet must be actively growing when sprayed or else the herbicide will not be drawn down into the weed’s roots.
- Wild violet has a reputation of being notoriously hard to kill.
- Wild violet is only responsive to post-emergent broad leaf herbicides that contains triclopyr and is listed as safe to use on lawns.
Spray the wild violet once it has grown 3 to 4 inches. Coat all of the plant tissue, but stop just before the herbicide drips off of the plant. In roughly two weeks, most of the wild violet will have wilted and turned yellow.
Spray the wild violet again three weeks after the first application . The second application should kill the majority of this season’s wild violet. If not, spray again as necessary at the intervals specified by your herbicide’s manufacturer.
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A Closer Look At Violets In The Lawn
These low-growing broadleaf weeds are highly shade-tolerant but will also grow in sunny areas. The flowers on violet can be white, blue, purple, or yellow. They may look small and delicate, but wild violet is quite aggressive and can produce thick mats of leaves that end up depriving the rest of your lawn of nutrients. Unfortunately, violets are difficult to control because of their extensive root systems, their waxy leaf covering, and their fast-growing tendencies.
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The Easiest Way To Get Rid Of Wild Violets Naturally
Wild violets can be removed by hand pulling or hand weeding, but because they have long, thin roots that spread in various directions, they can be difficult to remove all at once. These weeds also grow persistently through the months, so you might find yourself having to do multiple weedings through the spring and summer months when they are growing the fastest.
If you find the violets growing faster than you are able to remove them, it might be time to apply another solution: making your own herbicide to kill the wild violets. Here are the steps to going about the easiest ways to get rid of wild violets naturally:
How To Kill Wild Violets And Discourage Them From Coming Back
- Kill wild violets and other pesky lawn weeds with fast-acting Ortho® WeedClear Lawn Weed Killer Ready-to-Use. It’s rainproof in just an hour and won’t harm the surrounding lawn, plus the Comfort Wand makes it extra comfortable to use.
- To kill a widespread infestation of wild violet, go with Ortho® Weedclear Lawn Weed Killer Ready-To-Spray. A single bottle treats up to 5,000 square feet and the convenient hose attachment makes application as easy as watering your lawn.
- Regular feedings for your lawn provide the nutrients your grass needs to grow thick and strong and help crowd out weeds like wild violet.
- Mowing at a height best for your lawn allows the grass to grow thick and develop a deep root system. Grass clippings recycle plant nutrients back into the soil, so leave them where they fall if you use a mulching mower.
- Your lawn will begin to wilt when water is needed. As much as possible, take advantage of nature’s sprinkler and rely on the rain to water your lawn. If you do use sprinklers, set them to water your lawn deeply and infrequently. Most lawns only need an inch of water per week.
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How To Get Rid Of Wild Violets In Your Lawn
- Pin
- Working Time: 1 – 2 hrs
- Total Time: 2 – 3 wks
- Skill Level: Intermediate
- Estimated Cost: $20
Wild violets are a close relative of violas, pansies, and other garden flowers. While some people view this plant as a fine wildflower, others regard it as a stubborn perennial lawn weed. Wild violets can be removed by hand, especially if you regularly inspect your lawn to control the plant before it spreads. But sometimes this weed calls for the use of chemical herbicides for complete eradication.
What Causes Wild Violets
Wild Violets grow best in shady, moist, and fertile soil. They spread via underground root systems and seeds. Seed pods grow in small capsules at the base of the plant that look like they might bloom into flowers. Wild Violets form large colonies, connecting via their underground roots: rhizomes. They often occur in newer developments that were previously wooded or in established yards with forests nearby.
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Using Herbicides Chemicals To Kill Violets In Lawn
If larger parts of your lawn have been affected, you can kill the flowers systematically using broadleaf herbicides like Trimecor or Triclopyr. Triclopyr is mostly used by landscaping professionals, while Trimec is readily available at your local stores.
These herbicides will do the trick, but if the lawn is beyond saving, you can always kill the whole lawn and start afresh.
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How To Get Rid Of Violets And Creeping Charlie In The Lawn
Allyn HaneNews
Whats up yall – welcome to the very middle of October. Im on the road to the GIE Expo this week but wanted to take some time and drop some tips on you. For you cool season folks Im seeing more and more reports of wild violet and creeping charlie.Especially if you have gotten through your aeration and overseeding and are back to mowing regularly all that watering and fertilizing you have been doing has also encouraged these weeds and now its time to get on top of them.
The good news is: the very best time to get after these two common viney weeds is the fall time when outside air temps are above 55F during the day .The warmer the better, but as long as temps during the day are getting up over 55F for most of the day, you can get on these guys and stunt them pretty well.And that is the first tip: Patience. These two invaders have lots of underground support structures that make them harder to kill. Multiple applications will be needed and now is as good of a time as any to get started.
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Are Wild Violets Safe
Yes. The flowers and leaves of these wild plants are edible and even have medical qualities for humans.
The leaves are high in vitamin A and C and are commonly used in European salads or as cooked greens, Shipman says. The flowers can be candied or tossed into a salad to add a pop of color and flavor. She suggests making violet syrup, tea, infused honey or sugared flowers as fun and delicious family activities.
Do keep in mind, however, that you should never ingest flowers or leaves that have been treated with chemical fertilizers or pesticides.
Killing Violets In The Lawn
Getting rid of violets is no easy task. Hand-pulling violets wont get you very far due to their strong roots. Its very difficult to pull a violet without leaving at least some of the root in the ground, meaning its going to grow right back. Granular products dont work well on violets, either. Thats because not enough of the product will coat the leaves. Even if youre lucky enough to get a few flakes on the leaves, its not going to be effective enough to work.The key to killing violets in the lawn is a professional-grade broadleaf liquid herbicide that will stick to the leaves and ultimately knock wild violets back. This must be coupled with a long-term strategy, including spraying multiple times a year, particularly in the fall when certain products are able to be used in cooler temperatures.
In addition to spot treating the violets repeatedly from spring through fall, youll also want to focus on a lawn care program that encourages a healthy and thick lawn. Because violets thrive in sparse lawns, the thicker your lawn is, the more likely it will choke out these pesky weeds.
Thickening your lawn can be achieved with a program that incorporates regular fertilization, looks at improving the soil with necessary pH corrections, and includes aeration and overseeding every fall.
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Reasons To Keep Them On Your Lawn
It undeniable that even though they can be somewhat invasive, violets are pretty flowers. The flowers bloom in the early months of spring and bloom rather oftenand as a result, not everyone sees them as weeds.
There are those homeowners that are known to choose to let them grow in their lawns and elsewhere on their property.
There are a few reasons why you might want to let violets grow on your lawn:
- They offer the ability for low maintenance of lawns.
- You will able to avoid the use of any type of chemical or herbicide to combat them.
- They are a favorite amongst all types of pollinatorsincluding bees.
- If there an area of your property that you are having a problem with growing grass, violets, with their love of shady, moist areas, can prove to make them an excellent ground cover.
- They are considered a native species, and as such, they are beneficial additions to a natural landscape design.
Finally, many are not aware that the violet is officially classified as a weed safe for consumption. Both the flowers and the stems are safe to eat, and the leaves of the younger plants have a pleasant, somewhat nutty flavor. In addition, many individuals use parts of the flowers medicinally. The acid in the leaves is said to break down and eliminate corns and warts.
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At Last An Easy Way To Kill Violets
Never abandon hope is the lesson I impart today. On a recent Grumpy Gardener page in Southern Living, I sadly broke terrible news to a reader whose lawn and garden was submerged with violets. There is no spray to kill violets, I said. The only control is getting down on your hands and knees and digging nonstop for approximately 18 years.
I can hear the chorus coming from dismayed readers. “Why would anyone want to kill violets? They are beautiful and charming native wildflowers.”
That they are. But common dooryard violets are one other thing too. Extremely invasive. In the lawn or the garden. In the sun or the shade. If you see one this year, next year you’ll see a dozen. Then a hundred. Then a thousand. Then a veritable sea of violets will fill your yard from shore to shore. The fiends nearly choked out my beautiful lawn of native mosses. I dug up buckets of them.
These violets spread so quickly because they’re sneaky. They don’t just develop seeds from the pretty, blue, purple, or white flowers you admire in spring. Most seeds come from weird, pale flowers resembling mung bean sprouts that hide at the soil line under the foliage. They sow seeds all summer without the need for pollination.
Each seed that sprout grows a thick root that looks like a tiny horizontal carrot. Even if you dig it, any piece of the root left in the ground grows another violet. This root also makes the violet resistant to weedkillers available for home use.
Until now.
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A Closer Look At Ground Ivy Weeds
Like violets, ground ivy, which is also sometimes referred to as creeping Charlie, is incredibly aggressive. It grows in thick mats in areas of your lawn and can quickly become a major problem. Ground ivy can form extensive patches as it creeps across your lawn, crowding out desired turfgrass in the process. As it creeps along the soil surface it will form roots where its leaves join its stems.
How To Prevent Wild Violets From Coming Back
Many homeowners let a limited number of wild violets coexist with their turfgrass because the flowers are an important source of nectar when little else is in bloom. But once youve stopped a full-blown invasion, heres how you can keep these plants in check.
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Lawn care best practices: Start with a healthy, well-maintained lawn and planting beds. Dense grass and foliage make it difficult for seeds to establish and roots to spread, Shipman says.
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Mulching: Within a day or two after hand weeding, apply a thick layer of mulch to the area you weeded to suffocate any small bits of plant or root system left in the soil.
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Pruning: Wild violets do best in light shade where turfgrass struggles to thrive. Trim trees and overgrown shrubs to allow more sunlight to hit patches of the lawn where the flowers are proliferating.
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Drainage: Moist soil is where wild violets thrive, so improving the drainage of your garden or lawn will prevent these plants from taking up residence. Aerate your soil or mix in coarse organic material like sawdust, sand or gypsum.
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Consider Different Turfgrass Blends
Turfgrass mix is almost always blended because the diversity makes your lawn more resistant to disease, drought, and infestations. However, if your lawn is especially prone to wild violets, you may want to ask your lawn care professional about adding more fescue to the mix. Compared to other common grass blends, like Kentucky bluegrass, fescues are better at withstanding violet infestations.
Wild Violet Species Identification
From the blue to purple flowers they grow to the underground stems that can cause them to aggressively spread throughout your thick and healthy lawn, wild violets are easy to identify. They tend to be most common in the early spring.
In addition to their deep purple color, theyre also characterized by heart-shaped leaves. But these arent pretty flowers. In fact, theyre among the more challenging weeds to kill. Though they favor moist soil, they can also tolerate drought. And the flowers can drop seeds below the low-growing waxy leaves, which can submerge them in lawns and cause them to spread until there are thick clumps of even more violets in your lawn.
The good news is that they can be controlled and prevented both the flowers and the underground root system. In the forthcoming section, well take a look at how to do it:
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How To Kill Wild Violets
Finding yourself plucking at wild violets for hours? With a commercial lawn, it can feel like an impossible task to kill wild violets growing in the yard, but with the right methods, you can make some headway.
Neither hand-pulling violets, nor granular products, will work well to remove violets. Getting a violet fully out is tough due to its strong roots, and many solutions wonât coat the leaves with enough product. So, whatâs the answer?
When it comes to killing wild violets, we recommend:
- A professional-grade herbicide
- A long-term strategy, spraying multiple times a year
- A focused lawn care program for a thick, healthy lawn.
Wondering what herbicide kills wild violet weeds? For this, we recommend a professional-grade broadleaf liquid herbicide. This will be able to stick to leaves and kill the wild violets. Keep in mind, wild violets have a strong herbicide resistance. This means non-selective herbicides arenât super effective in ridding your lawn of this pesky weed.
However, herbicide alone wonât work. You not only need to spray multiple times a year to ensure you keep wild violets at bay but maintain the health of your grass as wild violets typically pop up in the more sparse areas of your lawn. To keep your lawn healthy, incorporate a solid routine of fertilization, aeration, and overseeding in the fall season.
With this method, youâll help keep wild violets from overtaking your property, alleviating the headache of fast-growing weeds.
