Marysville spreads across flat ground north of Everett, out toward Tulalip. The lots are bigger than the city lots to the south, and the ground is slow to drain. Water does not run off a slope because there often is not a slope. Creeping buttercup is a drainage weed. Killing the top and leaving the wet spot means it is back from the runners.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98270 · 2020 population 70,714
Buttercup likes the clay
We treat the lawn weeds we can treat, and we point at the corner that stays wet. That corner needs a drain, a raise, or a bed. Spray alone turns it yellow for a month.
Clover in clay is often a thin lawn, not a scandal. If you want it gone we can spot-treat and seed. If the lawn is half clover because the soil is tired, seed and lime do more than a blanket herbicide.
The ground in Marysville
Flat ground sounds easy until a winter storm sits on it. French drains and permeable surfaces matter here more than tall walls. Yards are family yards: room for a lawn, a play set, fruit trees that people already have and want kept, and a patio that can take a barbecue without turning into a pond.
The soil is the kind that grows a decent lawn if it can breathe, and moss if it cannot. We mow, aerate, and seed the open lawns, and we bark the beds so the weed cycle slows down. Drainage is the job we would rather do first. A new sod lawn laid over undrained flat clay is a replacement lawn in two years. Fruit trees get pruned for light and for the fruit, not sheared into balls.
How we do the work
Buttercup, dandelion, and clover in a lawn usually mean the grass is thin, the soil is wet or sour, or the mowing is too short. Spray on a lawn that is mostly weed is a brown yard. We thicken the grass and treat the weeds that are actually invaders, and we tell you when the lawn should be renovated instead.
In beds, the honest tools are a thick bark layer, a pulled root, and a edge that the field cannot cross. Pre-emergent has a place on gravel and on open soil. It is not a substitute for three inches of bark in a bed that was never mulched.
What we look at first
- Which weed it is, because buttercup and horsetail are not the same job
- How much of the lawn is still grass
- Wet spots that will regrow the weed no matter what we spray
- Beds versus turf, so we are not putting a lawn product in a shrub bed
Spot treat, do not fog
A targeted application on the weeds you can name beats a broadcast that yellows the grass and still misses the roots in a wet spot. We would rather make a second short visit than burn a lawn to get the dandelions.
Bare spots need seed
A dead weed is a hole. In a lawn, that hole is the next weed unless grass fills it. We seed the opening when the product label and the season allow, or we come back and seed. Leaving dirt is not a finished visit.
Horsetail and buttercup
Both point at water. Horsetail especially will laugh at a single spray. We can suppress it and we will tell you it returns if the seep stays. Drainage is the actual fix. We do not sell a secret jug for it.
More from this crew
- Lawn weed control across Snohomish County
- Lawn fertilization in Marysville
- Lawn aeration in Marysville
- Beauty bark in Marysville
- Lawn mowing in Marysville
- Lawn weed control in Everett
- Lawn weed control in Arlington
- Lawn weed control in Lake Stevens
Sources for the climate and the water
- USDA plant hardiness map for choosing plants that can take a Snohomish County winter.
- EPA WaterSense on watering less once a lawn or a new planting is established.
- EPA Soak Up the Rain on keeping roof and yard water from becoming someone else’s problem.
