Mallow: How to Eliminate and Kill Mallow in Turfgrasses

The yard is infested with a weed with hairy stalks 4 to 12 inches long. The hairy heart-shaped leaves are also present. It is tough to extract the taproot from the soil. White to lilac blooms with five petals, 2 1/2 inches in diameter, bloom alone or in groups. Mallow, sometimes known as cheeseweed, may be found across the United States. It is especially frequent in poorly maintained lawns and soils with a high manure concentration. It is frequently confused with ground ivy, but its spreading branches do not root when they come into touch with the soil.

These annuals begin to grow with the first fall rains and soon establish a deep taproot that becomes woody, making the plant difficult to remove by hand or even with tools. Cheeseweed is a popular term for fruit that is frequently described as appearing like a little wheel of cheese.

Common mallow is a cold season annual broadleaf plant that may also function as a biennial if favorable environmental circumstances continue. It’s common in low-maintenance turfgrass lawns, nursery crops, and landscaping. Widespread mallow is a common turfgrass plant across Indiana due to its capacity to live in a variety of environmental and soil conditions, such as cold temperatures and dry, compacted soils, as well as its ability to endure lower mowing heights.

Effects of Mallow in Turfgrasses

Mallow growing in landscape beds and turf reduces the aesthetic value of the place, while excessive numbers of plants can reduce crop production. Mallow plants, if allowed to grow unchecked, may wreak havoc on harvesting machines. Furthermore, if allowed to mature to the point of generating seed, the number of seeds in the soil would increase in future years, causing increasing issues. Mallow can host or serve as a refuge for whiteflies in commercial agricultural crops. Furthermore, mallows can act as a reservoir for a variety of plant viruses such as alfalfa mosaic virus, cotton leaf crumple virus, tomato yellow leaf curl, and tomato spotted wilt tospovirus.

Prevention and Control

Regardless of how sweet mallow is, it is not always a welcome visitor in the garden or lawn. Getting rid of this tenacious plant is also a difficult task. Mature mallow appears to be extremely resistant to the majority of popular herbicides. Making sure your grass is thick and healthy is one of the greatest strategies to control this problem in lawns. Good grass will choke out the weed and prevent its seeds from spreading.

Controlling Common Mallow is more expensive and time-consuming than preventing it. When sowing a new area, be certain that the seeds are certified weed-free. If you have an infected area on your property, make sure to drive around it rather than through it. Finally, be sure to thoroughly clean all equipment that has been contaminated fields to ensure that no seeds are spread.

Hand weeding is a good way to keep tiny populations under control. Pull them when they are young, exactly like other annual weeds, before the seeds develop and spread. Pre-emergent herbicides can help reduce weed seed development in the spring. Broadleaf herbicides are most effective when administered from mid-spring to early summer when the plant is young and actively developing.