Jerry Spencer
Here are the 10 most common lawn weeds in Australia. All of these are common in gardens and lawns and all of them aren't the easiest to get rid of.
Curly Dock favours wet soils and can produce up to 60,000 seeds per plant
Purslane or Pigweed favours disturbed soils. It is a highly invasive weed and one reason for this is its large production of seed. One plant can produce up to 250,000 seeds over a season.
Catsear is also known as Flatweed or False Dandelion due to its close resemblance to Dandelions. False Dandelion is a perennial edible weed. It is present in lawns, low cut turf and road verges.
It is toxic to horses and causes stringhalt. Catsear is a good sign of well draining soil.
Black Medic is a low-growing weed and has three heart shaped trifoliate leaves. These leaves have shallow teeth towards their tips and dark spots near the centre.
Creeping oxalis is an annual or sometimes perennial herb, and is also known as Yellow Wood Sorrel or Wood Sorrel. It is a weed of gardens and lawns, and has three leaflets on each leaf. Often this troublesome weed forms dense mats in lawns that choke out turf.
Onion Grass is known as Guildford Grass. Guildford Grass is a small perennial herb that grows from a white bulb. These are called corms. It has a yellow base and annual leaves with small pink, white, purple or yellow flowers.
Buckhorn Plantain is easy to identify as it has distinct slender parallel veins on hairy leaves that form 1 or more rosettes. Slender, long flowering stems emerge from these rosettes, which carry dense, brown, cylindrical seed heads. These often have white anthers sticking out of them.
Because of its height this enables seeds to quickly spread via the wind. In the cooler months in late Autumn and early Winter, this weed often germinates
Mallow is a soil indicator of low soil Ca and waterlogged, compacted soil with poor drainage. It also indicates high K, Fe, Al, and very high Mg. It also shows very wet, compact soil with poor drainage.
Bindii is also called Jo-Jo Weed or Onehunga. It is infamous for its tiny sharp-pointed seeds and favours compact soils.
White Clover is a creeping perennial weed with most growth in Spring, Summer and Autumn. It is easily recognised by its characteristic green, trifoliate compound leaves. White Clover has below ground rhizomes and above ground stolons, and is able to spread rapidly and easily compete with turf species.
