Common chickweed is currently dominating any fall- or dormant-seedings (including my lawn). Common chickweed is a winter annual, so it germinated last fall, grew well into December and is starting to spread with the temperatures this weekend (see accompanying photos). In established lawns, I wouldn’t recommend spraying it because it will die with the first heat of summer. However, on newly seeded areas, it should be controlled soon to give the desired turf a better chance to compete. The product of choice currently is Quicksilver from FMC. It is effective in cool temperatures and very safe on seedling turf. Other typical broadleaf products are not effective this early in the year and can be damaging to newly-seeded or soon-to-be-seeded turf. Speedzone from PBI Gordon also contains the same active ingredient as Quicksilver (carfentrazone), but the other three products in Speedzone can damage seedlings.
