Every weed that shows up in a collar-county lawn
Each one gets a straight difficulty rating, the cultural fix, the eco product, and a reference panel showing what the truck would spray and why we do not.
Easy: pull it or rake it
The summer invader. Sprouts from seed once soil hits 55 F, sprawls flat in a star shape, and dies at first frost leaving a bare spot that reseeds itself.
Deep taproot, yellow flower, puffball seed head. The easiest weed to fix by hand and the one most people spray for.
Oval leaves in a flat rosette with a tall skinny seed spike. The signature weed of compacted soil along paths and play areas.
The narrow-leaf cousin of broadleaf plantain, with a cone-shaped seed head on a wiry stalk that pops right back up after mowing.
A low, bright-green mat with tiny white star flowers that shows up in March and dies in June heat. Shallow roots, pulls up like a rug.
The purple haze in April lawns and fields. Square stems, scalloped leaves clasping the stem, pink-purple tube flowers. Gone by June.
A succulent mat with reddish stems and paddle leaves that shows up in hot, bare, dry soil in July. Edible, actually.
A flat, dense mat of tiny leaves with a red spot in the center, spreading from a single taproot along hot sidewalks and driveway edges.
Clover's skinny cousin with tiny yellow flower balls and black seed pods. It is a legume, so like clover it shows up where nitrogen is low.
A wiry, blue-green mat with small oval leaves that grows where the ground is beaten hard: along driveways, paths, and the kids' goal mouth.
A summer annual grass with a bushy, bristly seed head like a fox's tail. The seed heads can lodge in dogs' paws and ears.
Medium: iron and patience
Three-leaf patches with white flowers that bees love. It fixes nitrogen from the air, which is why it shows up in hungry lawns. Many eco lawns keep it on purpose.
Looks like clover but with heart-shaped leaflets and small yellow flowers. Seed pods fire seeds several feet when ripe.
Clumps of hollow, round, dark-green leaves that shoot up in March and smell like onion when mowed. Grows from bulbs.
Hard: manage, maybe not eliminate
The hardest lawn weed in the Midwest. Square stems, scalloped round leaves, purple flowers in April, and it roots at every node so one plant becomes a mat.
Not a grass. Lighter green, grows faster than the lawn, triangular stem, and it stores food in underground tubers (nutlets) that survive almost anything.
Heart-shaped glossy leaves and purple flowers in May. Waxy leaves shed sprays, and thick rhizomes shrug off pulling. The second-hardest lawn weed after creeping Charlie.
A coarse, fast-growing grass that spreads by sharp white rhizomes and looks almost like the lawn until it outgrows it. Nothing selective kills it.
A fine, wiry, blue-green warm-season grass that goes straw-brown from October to May, leaving dead-looking patches in an otherwise green lawn.
Spiny leaves, purple flowers, and a root system that can run 15 feet sideways. One plant becomes a colony.