Question
I have a very long 70ft by 4ft garden on the side of my house. There is a whole mid section that has been riddled with some kind of dense hay type grass. It is preventing other flowers from growing there and we MUST get rid of it. I am trying to find an answer to how to kill this grass it is incredibly dense and hard to pull out. We have tilled it and tried to pull as many roots as we can but it is absolutely incredible how many roots there are!!!

I would even sacrifice the whole section for this year if I need to in order to get rid of this grass. There are fields near by and  I am certain that is how this grass got into the garden so preventing down the line would be good to know as well.

It is tremendously hard to get these roots as they are very long. We tilled then pulled then tilled again and there were MORE!!! So we pulled and pulled they just apparently keep coming!!!

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Deb

Answer
It sounds like Torpedo grass (Panicum repens). You can spray it with glyphosate BUT at a fairly low rate applied more than once. The reason is that you want to allow the chemical to reach the farthest parts of the deepest roots. In the meantime you want to keep the parts above ground alive and well to absorb and translocate the later applications. So, 1 oz. of the 42% concentrate per gallon applied every 10 days as long as there is some green material visible. After that you will want to treat any regrowth (green) on a weekly schedule to use up all the energy stored in those long fat underground rhizomes. Please bear in mind that it is a non selective plant killer and will harm all the green parts of all plants. Another chemical is 'Fluazifop' which kills grasses very selectively. The advantage here is that you may be able to spray it without harm over your desirable broad leaf plants. Please read the label carefully to make sure that your desirable plants are listed as 'safe'. It is extremely important not to exceed ths label rate. You should not try to chop or dig up this weed since that can stimulate the remaining stubble to regrow more vigorosly.