If summer weeds are taking over your yard, here's how to identify — and treat — them

It is the most wonderful time of the year — if you are a weed! I feel like I am growing an experimental test field for weeds, and they are being very, very successful.

The heat and the rainfall are the perfect medium for our warm-season weeds. What is a gardener to do? Well, do not stress out, but you have to attack the weeds according to their individual personalities.

Many of them, like Asiatic hawksbeard, are easiest to just pull up. You have probably met this rather innocent-looking weed. It has a rosette of leaves and a foot-long stem that shoots up with little yellow flowers at the top. Pull up 10 of them today on the way to getting your mail, 10 of them tomorrow. Do not get heat stroke over it, just pull them up before they go to seed. This is so important for all weeds because weed seeds can germinate for years. You want to keep the seeds from being produced and released into your yard. Read more at https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/EP636 .

Another lovely that keeps trying to grace my yard is called Flora’s paintbrush or tassel flower. It has magenta blooms and is about one-foot tall. It produces seeds that blow about easily in the wind. Pull this one too. Do not let those seeds get out or you will be pulling them for years.

Crabgrass must be pulled very early because it starts reseeding early. It is ok to spot-treat this one carefully with a non-selective herbicide.

Chamberbitters are having their day. Never heard of them? I’ll bet you’ve seen them. They grow leaflets with small parallel leaves arranged in neat rows along the stems. Under the leaves, the seeds grow in a tidy row along the central branch of the stem: little bombs waiting to grow more weeds. This plant has a taller cousin, called long-stalked phylanthus that grows the seeds a little differently but is about as prolific and just as easy to pull up. These plants are very prolific, so pull them soon and often. Read more at https://gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/care/weeds-and-invasive-plants/chamberbitter/ .

Weeds are often related to the conditions around them. Sedges are one of them. They can be identified by their triangular stems. Nutsedges love wet compacted soils. We have three different varieties: yellow, purple and globe. At this time of year, they are flowering and going to seed. This is not a weed that is eliminated by pulling, as the “nut”-like tuber and underground runners will stay behind and grow several new plants. Can you improve your drainage so that water does not stand in that area of your yard? Our storms this year are just getting started and we have a long way to go before we get to November 30 ^th , the end of the official hurricane season.

Some of gardening is investigation — figuring out what causes problems and what fixes them. The University of Florida has an interesting publication that can help you use weeds to figure out what the weeds that grow in your yard say about the moisture levels in your soil. All plants have a preferred soil moisture level and if a certain plant (including a weed) is just growing like crazy in your yard, it is a good sign that it has the kind of conditions it loves. So, you can learn about what your soil moisture levels (sun levels/fertility levels) are by identifying the weeds that are growing. See if this publication gives you some clues about your yard: https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/EP634 . Maybe you can change the conditions to provide less perfect conditions for the weeds.

Dichondra or dollar weed is another wet condition lover. In lawns, you can treat with a preemergent in early spring or a post-emergent in late spring. (See more at https://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheet/dollarweed/ .)

Spreading dayflower has a tiny blue flower and small pointed leaves and will cover over lawns and move into flower beds. Pulling these plants is a waste of time because the root pieces left behind will sprout new plants. I laughed when I was researching this and saw in the University of Florida publication that this weed, also known as Bengal weed, is one of the world’s worst weeds! Herbicide is necessary to stop this plant. It is resistant to glyphosate (Roundup), so Basagran may be your best option, and it will take several applications to control it.

If you have poison ivy, oak, or sumac, I hope you are aware of it. It is often confused with Virginia creeper. Virginia creeper has leaves of five. It does have sap that irritates some people but not anywhere near the level of the poison ivy, oak, and sumac trio. For more information, see https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/EP220 .

Identifying weeds is not easy. There are plant ID aps you can get for your phone, or if you like books, the University of Florida has a book titled Weeds of Southern Turfgrasses. My copy is very dog-eared and full of Post-it page markers. You can always search “ask ifas” and the document numbers listed on any of the links we provide. Pictures are very helpful for identifying weeds and knowing what you’re dealing with is always the first step to success. Wishing you the best of luck fighting the weeds.

Becky Wern is a Master Gardener volunteer with the Duval County Extension Service and the University of Florida/IFAS. For gardening questions, call the Duval County Extension Office at (904) 255-7450 from 9 a.m. to noon and 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. Monday-Friday and ask for a Master Gardener volunteer.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: If summer weeds are taking over your yard, here's how to identify — and treat — them