# Hay seeds growing in lawn



## JCG (Mar 22, 2020)

I planted grass seed in the middle of September 2019. Covered on the seed with hay my girlfriend was using as fall decorations from a local market farm. Well, the seeds in the hay started growing as well and in October I had lime green barley, rye, alfalfa or whatever they hay is. It is all the same whatever it is, ugly lime green grows fast and everywhere. Anyways, I assumed it was annual and would die in winter so I just mowed low to keep it from seeding. Well here we are almost end of March and it is thriving! Thicker and more lime green. How can an annual plant be alive? what do I do? I live by Cincinnati so I feel like it got cold enough to kill it. Unless heat kills annuals plants but if thats the case I would like to know for certain because if its not going to ever die off then Im torching the whole yard, again. Thanks for any help.


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

They could be anything. Even supposed weed free straw grew Timothy that is a perennial and took me a few years to get rid of 99.99%. I must have pulled a few thousand plants. Some annuals don't always die either, like annual ryegrass.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Most annuals do not die in the winter. The die in the summer heat. Other weeds are biannual (last two years). If you have tenacity, try to see what happens once the weather warms up again (snow in indy).


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## JCG (Mar 22, 2020)

Here are some pictures. Again, need to know if it's annual or not. If it's not I will just have to kill off my lawn. Not doing that if this will just go away though.


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## FuzzeWuzze (Aug 25, 2017)

g-man said:


> Most annuals do not die in the winter. The die in the summer heat. Other weeds are biannual (last two years). If you have tenacity, try to see what happens once the weather warms up again (snow in indy).


Is this only true if you let it go dormant? If im watering every week i'd think most annuals would have no problem surviving? I guess it depends how hot your summers get, when ours are usually in the low to mid 80's here on average shit just grows 365, 24/7


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## FuzzeWuzze (Aug 25, 2017)

JCG said:


> Here are some pictures. Again, need to know if it's annual or not. If it's not I will just have to kill off my lawn. Not doing that if this will just go away though.


I mean, it looks bad, but a few hours pulling plants when the soil is soft and you'll probably have most of it gone. Its what i've had to do with Poa this winter. Its easy to spot, and most of it if its anything like poa if you can get it near the bottom the entire plant will ccome out in 1 chunk relatively easy because they are so shallow rooted, so its not as much work as you may think. Things like Poa Triv or others that mesh into your entire lawn where you cant realistically only pull the Triv without collateral damage is when you need to spray.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

@FuzzeWuzze if you don't get white stuff falling from the sky and days below 32F, then it is not really winter. ;-). Otherwise yes you can have weeds growing 24/7 365.


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## Wolverine (Jan 17, 2018)

Are you sure this is hay seed and not something else like barnyard grass?


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## Scagfreedom48z+ (Oct 6, 2018)

I'm following this. I have a similar issue. I'm fearful that it might be quackgrass so I've started paint the blades with straight glypho and a hint of tenacity. Wolverine, I'm hoping you're right that this is barnyard grass!!!

I'm thinking of blanket spraying for post emergent weeds anyway so I'm going to most likely give quinclorac and speedzone a try together.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

@JCG i think you should pull a couple and get good pictures of auricles, tips and such to get a good id. Decorative hay can pretty much have any/all possible pasture grasses (quackgrass, orchardgrass).


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## Wolverine (Jan 17, 2018)

https://www.turffiles.ncsu.edu/weeds-in-turf/


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## JCG (Mar 22, 2020)

Every single one of the light green plants is for sure the same plant as the hay I bought. I used to pull the light green out of my new fescue and it you could see the seeds growing right out of the end of the hay stalk. If I can identify the plant I will know if this is going to go away or I need to re plant the yard again. Half the yard was Pete moss and the other half was the hay. Hence why this is only in one half of my yard. I ran out of pete moss, got lazy and just used her hay she was decorating with. Again, planted all of it at the end of September.


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## mrp116 (Mar 2, 2020)

I have this in a 2'x5' patch where my water main sprung a leak last summer (fortunately on the water authority's pipe so I didn't have to pay for the repair). They reseeded and put hay down on the area. I wish I wouldn't have allowed them to do that. I'm thinking about killing it all with glypho and reseeding the entire area as soon as I get my irrigation turned on. It sucks because it's on a drainage ditch hill, and spring storms are so unpredictable for washing out the seed.


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## maxw7 (Apr 26, 2019)

Will be following as well as this is something I have in my yard as well. Oddly in my yard it is showing up towards the back portion of my yard where it is highly shaded by trees. I use to have a company fertilize my yard but after paying out the nose and feeling as though my yard got worse, I decided to take it into my own hands. I was told that the only way to get rid of the "invasive" grass was to paint with roundup and pull them out. I missed my window to overseed in the fall as I was hoping that I would be able to choke out the grass, Any resolutions on this issue would be greatly appreciated! Good luck to all dealing with this grass!


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## nclawnguy (Jun 27, 2017)

Straw is the worst thing you can use to cover seed. There is always various grassy weeds that are extremely hard to get rid of other than hand pull or complete kill with glyphosate. Sorry you have to deal with this, most of us have learned this hard lesson at some point. Your lawn seems small enough to give hand pulling a go.


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## Scagfreedom48z+ (Oct 6, 2018)

nclawnguy said:


> Straw is the worst thing you can use to cover seed. There is always various grassy weeds that are extremely hard to get rid of other than hand pull or complete kill with glyphosate. Sorry you have to deal with this, most of us have learned this hard lesson at some point. Your lawn seems small enough to give hand pulling a go.


I totally agree, never again. I used peat in the back and I have zero weeds coming up. What a mistake, live and learn. I know it's going to be some work to kill it all off but it's doable. 30 mins at a time and give yourself a small stretch to do at a time. Small goals basically. I was immediately overwhelmed when I saw the shear amount but it's surprising how much you are able to get done in small increments.

The weather totally sucks right now, cold, rainy and raw. So it's a very slow kill on what I've done so far. It's hard to keep going right now since the weeds that have been painted aren't dying off at the rate that I would like. I'm going to wait and really hit it hard once the weather is over 50 degrees consistently


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