Stop Guessing! Crabgrass vs. Orchard grass: How to Identify, Prevent, and Remove Clumpy Grasses
Weeds are frustrating, especially when clumps of strange grass pop up in your lawn. Before you grab a weed killer, it's important to know what you're dealing with. Two common culprits in Utah lawns are crabgrass and orchardgrass. They might both be grassy weeds, but they look and behave very differently. Mistaking one for the other could mean wasting effort on the wrong treatment.
Crabgrass vs. Orchardgrass: Identification
Crabgrass is a warm-season annual (sprouts from seed in spring, dies in fall), whereas orchardgrass is a cool-season perennial (comes back from the same roots every year). These different life cycles affect when they show up and how to get rid of them. Here’s how to recognize each:
Crabgrass (Summer Annual)
Growth: Sprouts in late spring as soil warms up, then thrives during the hot summer. It forms low, spreading mats that hug the ground. Stems branch out and can root at their joints, quickly covering bare spots.
Looks: Leaves are coarse and slightly hairy, often with a hint of reddish-purple at the base. By mid-summer, crabgrass produces seed heads that look like a few thin fingers at the tips of its stems.
Orchardgrass (Perennial Clump Grass)
Orchard Grass
Growth: Starts very early in spring (cool weather, well before crabgrass). Grows in upright clumps that outgrow the surrounding lawn. If left uncut, clumps can reach 2–3 feet tall. Orchardgrass survives winter and comes back each year, slowly expanding its patch.
Looks: Broad (½-inch wide), smooth leaves with no hairs, often folded at the base. Orchardgrass clumps are lighter green and thicker-bladed than the rest of your grass, so they stand out against fine-textured turf (like Kentucky bluegrass or fescue).
Prevention and Control
A healthy lawn (mowed high, watered deeply, and fed properly) is your best defense against weeds. But when crabgrass or orchardgrass do pop up, handle each one differently:
Crabgrass Control
Prevention: Keep your turf thick to crowd out crabgrass. Each spring, before crabgrass sprouts, apply a pre-emergent herbicide when soil temperatures reach around 50–55°F in early spring. This creates a barrier that stops crabgrass seeds from germinating.
Removal: If crabgrass appears, remove it early. Pull up young plants by hand or spot-treat with a post-emergent spray for crabgrass while the weeds are still small (late spring/early summer). Once crabgrass matures and starts seeding, it’s very tough to eliminate (and will die off at the first frost anyway). Rake out any dead crabgrass in fall and re-seed those spots to help your lawn recover.
Orchardgrass Control
Prevention: Pull up any orchardgrass sprouts or small clumps as soon as you spot them. Also, keep your lawn thick by quickly re-seeding bare patches, leaving less opportunity for orchardgrass to take hold.
Removal: No selective herbicide will kill orchardgrass without harming lawn grass, so you’ll need to remove it manually or with spot treatment. Dig out the clumps (roots and all) or spot-spray them with a non-selective weed killer (which kills any grass it touches). Either way, refill the hole with soil and re-seed the area to restore the lawn.
By knowing which weed you have and treating it correctly, you save yourself a lot of hassle. Proper identification, timely treatment, and good lawn maintenance will result in a healthier lawn where weeds struggle to invade.