A discussion of the vital problems of lawn making and maintenance PUBLISHED SEVERAL TIMES YEARLY BY O. M. SCOTT & SONS COMPANY SEEDSMEN MARYS VILLE, OHIO Vol. IV March-April 1931 No. 2 European Immigrant Creeping Buttercup OCCASIONALLY we shall intro- duce a weed which does not fre- quent all sections of the country, yet where appearing freely it causes serious damage to lawns. Such a weed is Creeping Butter- cup. On the Atlantic sea- board all the way from Nova Scotia to Virginia it is quite common, especially in lawns that are poorly drained. Being an immi- grant from Europe it ap- parently received such a cordial welcome that there was no inclination to go any farther west. Never- theless in the east, west, and middle west there are several other varieties of buttercup which would be classified as native. PREFERS THE EAST. The east produces very from which few grasses seed is harvested for the market. Consequently such weeds as Creeping Butter- cup have no direct means of spreading elsewhere. On the contrary, weeds of the middle west maturing at harvest time with the different grasses that are used in lawn mixtures have the opportunity of making their presence felt in the far corners of the country. CREEPING B U T T E R C UP Ranunculus repens Illustration courtesy Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station FLOWERS QUITE PICTURESQUE. Creeping Buttercup isn't particularly objectionable—in fact it is not without some decorative virtue. The golden yel- low blooms are rather pretty but after all they don't belong in a lawn. As the name would imply, Creeping Buttercup has the faculty of taking possession of the section of one's lawn to the exclusion of any- thing else. After the early bloom is past the plant de- votes its energy to throw- ing out numerous slender runners one to three feet long, from every joint of which a young plant may take root. In short the plants propagate by means of both seeds and runners. The blooms appear any time between May and July while the seeding pe- riod is between late June and August. MEANS OF CONTROL. Where Creeping Butter- cup has formed in patches there is nothing to do ex- cept spade it up. Where there are only a few scat- tered plants they should be dug out by hand before the first seed develops. It is useless to resow a lawn that is infested with Creep- ing Buttercup without first digging the plants out. The grass will not be able to overcome them. As far as we can deter- mine no chemical used as a spray will VOLUME 4 [3 ] entirely destroy this weed, although a bulletin of the Maryland Experiment Station published back in 1911 reports good results from an Iron Sulfate spray. The Buttercups thus treated, however, were apparently of the ordinary meadow Buttercup species and not the more per- sistent Creeping Buttercup. Heavy fer- tilization is recommended by one au- thority as a possible means of discourag- ing Buttercup. Another quite significant thing is that this weed appears most fre- quently on poorly drained soils so an important step in control would be the remedying of faulty drainage conditions in the lawn. Dandelions and Plantain Dispelled IRON SULFATE still appears to be the most successful chemical for the destruction of dandelions and plantain. Time after time it has done the job thor- oughly but you mustn't expect wonders from a single application. The green- keeper of a golf course near Wilkins- burg, Pennsylvania, commented recently on his experience in controlling the two weeds mentioned above. — It seems that his course was right in the midst of a number of abandoned farms so that it caught all the weed seeds which emanated from them. He had a real problem on his hands. This is how he met it. Five applications, two weeks apart, were made of an Iron Sul- fate solution prepared by dissolving ll/2 pounds of (granulated form) per gallon of water. He ran this solution through thicknesses of cheese cloth. The area was so large that a power sprayer of 200 gallon capacity was used. Spray nozzles were used to distribute the material and ahead of the spray a drag was improvised consisting of several steel door mats. Their function was to bruise these plants so that the so- Iron Sulfate four lution would penetrate the stems. The fairways and rough of the course in ques- tion were so covered with dandelions and plantain that five applications were neces- sary to put them out of business. The presence of these weeds in most lawns should not be so abundant as to require more than three iron sulfate applications. SPECIFIC STRENGTH NOT IMPORTANT. The method here explained is quite similar to that explained in the March- April, 1930 L A WN CARE. It will also be noted that where the experiences of three persons in applying iron sulfate have been related, the strength of the solution used has varied from 1Y2 pounds in 1 gallon of water to 1% pounds in 4 gal- lons . Note, however, that where the strongest solution was used it was strained through cheese cloth which no doubt removed some of the coarser par- ticles. We suggest the weaker solution where the application is being made with a sprinkling can. The flow should be rather free. Where a spray pump of either the hand or power variety is used the solution might safely be more con- centrated. that 1 Vi pounds of iron sulfate in solution will cover about 350 square feet (10x35). On this basis a lawn of 10,000 square feet or about one fourth of an acre would require 45 pounds of iron sulfate in about 60 to 70 gallons of water. We suggest that before the spray is applied, a drag of some nature, not heavy enough to injure the grass, be pulled over the lawn to bruise the dandelions. is estimated It When You Send a Weed IF you wish to mail us a weed or grass identification please moisten slightly and wrap in wax paper. This insures our receiving the specimen in its original freshness. specimen for [ 4] V O L U M E4