Question
Thansk for the advise on the sugar for my lawn, im going today to buy it. Will a normal lawn spreader work on sugar? The main question I have is I have what looks like bermuda/wiregrass spoted in my yard. Not sure this is a correct diagnosis or not but it is different shade of green and it spreads at an incredible rate covering exsisting sod with these long viny stalks. In one week they usually run about 8-12 inches. I've read on other post that say I'm stuck w/ this. Do you think sugar will help this or should i just keep pulling it up to control it....thanks Mike,

Answer
Well, I tried looking up burmuda wiregrass, and didn't get a picture of it, like I hoped, but i read a lot about how you can't get rid of burmuda.
Uh, that was what was in this yard when we bought the house, burmuda and every kind of weed that will live in North texas.
the way I got rid of the burmuda was to do what everybody here told me to do. Just plug in the St. Augustine, and take good care of it, and eventually it will crowd out the burmuda, which it did.
I don't know if what we have here is burmuda wiregrass. Iy is a slener leaved grass, but it is very pretty for a lawn, I just liked the broader blades of st. augustine.
If what you have is a weed grass, like crabgrass and johnson grass, the sugar will do away with it.
Weeds love poor soil, and will not thrive in rich soil.
for instance, you can't grow wild violets or nasturtiums in rich soil, because they are really weeds. I like the wild violets, and kept a cluster that was growing between the stones in one path. I put no sugar in that area, but eventually the microbes migrated, and now my little wild violets are gone.
I have never spread sugar with a spreader.
Actually, I never used a spreader.
I felt it was more trouble that it was worth to set it, and keep a straight line with it, so when I was using chemical fertilizers, I always broadcast it by hand.
I guess it was from feeding so many chickens at my grandmother's and my Aunts' houses every summer whhen I visited them.
My sister and I were the only City kids in our family, and mother sent us to our grandmother's for two weeks, then we got to go from there to one of the Uncle and aunt's, and then from there to another , and so on until most of the summer was gone.
I loved working in their gardens and doing farm stuff when I was a kid. that was play to me, because I didn't get to do it at home.
We could also ride horses, and all kinds of neat stuff. the aunts and uncles had kids our ages. Great summers!!
I always fed the chickens, and they all had hundreds of them. I would carry a container of feed under one arm, and
Hi Michael;
I broadcast it by hand in sweeting arcs.I could cover very easily, so that is the way I applied anything
dry that needed less than you would spread with a shovel.
I can walk and broadcast, and see exactly where what I am strewing lands, so I get more even coverage that way.
With the sugar, it doesn't really matter if you get very even coverage, as it will not burn, even if you put a lot in one spot.
I think if you gently pull up the burmuda( or whatever it is) until you get to the base root, and dig that root out, you will eventually get rid of that, if the sugar doesn't do it.
I don't know if Bahia will crowd out the burmuda like st. augustine does.
You could try applying sugar with a spreader, but i wouldn't have a clue what setting to put it on.
Charlotte