Virginia Buttonweed (Diodia Virginiana)
I hate this stuff. Sure, it may look all sweet and innocent in the photo, but this weed is a tenacious lawn-destroyer. It likes wet areas and started growing next to my birdbath a few years ago. Not realizing how evil it was, I did nothing until last year. By then, it had spread out over several feet and even came up in a completely separate section of my yard.
I used Bayer’s Weed Control spray last summer, which destroyed everything above ground level but didn’t kill the roots. The buttonweed is back this year and I’ve been trying to remove it by hand, which I read is the preferred method of control.
Alan says that I may as well give up, but I refuse to let this weed win! :x
Read more about Virginia Buttonweed here. If anyone has successfully dealt with this weed, please share your experience.
Use Confront by Dow to kill it..
i also have virginia buttonweed, i called roundup and they said to use “weed be gone”
it works very well although it doesn’t kill it for good
i use a 2 gallon sprayer for spots spraying
good luck
I have tried roundup and 24D, I got a slow kill or though I thought, it killed the heck out of my san augustine grass. A few months later, the virgina buttonweed was back. I talked to a PHD at Texas A&M in College Station and he told me there was no research of which he had knowledge that was being done to eradict virgina buttonweed. I am at the point of pulling my hair out. I do know one thing-if you mulch when you mow you will spread the heck out of it.
@ Billy: I’ve used Roundup over the entire area several times. Last summer was really hot and dry here, and Roundup killed everything in the area. As the buttonweed tried to fill back in, I sprayed it again and it died. In the fall, I planted grass and it filled in quickly. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I don’t see buttonweed coming back up when warmer weather arrives, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
I also have had an outbreak of buttonweed over the past 3 years. The one and only thing I have found that makes any difference is to spray with the Roundup Extended Control, and let it die, spray again (even though it is dead)and give it a week in the sun. And then, this is the kicker, I took and dug 12″ inches of soil down and in each direction from the center of the growth, and I hauled the dirt away, put new dirt in, and put new sod down. I have St. Augustine grass, as many people do in the south. I did that year one, and now two years later, nothing has yet to come back in that same spot. The second year, did it in another growth spot, and once again, nothing as of yet. So last year I did it in the remaining areas that I had the buttonweed, and so far this spring I haven’t seen the DEVIL rear its ugly head yet. It is very labor intensive, due the digging and excavation involved, but it really works, without coming back. The root system in buttonweed is what makes it an impossible weed to kill. It grows up to 10 inches deep, thus why I dug 12 inches down. Anyway, good luck, if you take my advice, it has worked without fail for me.
Go with the first commenter and use Confront. You’ll probably have to order it online and it is very expensive, but it should last you many years due to its concentration.
I should add that my use of Confront *controls* the buttonweed–I have not eradicated it. So instead of having vast areas of the evil weed, I see small plants dotted about my lawn every weekend when I spray. I’m OK with this, as the buttonweed is now just one more target during my weekly spot treatment.
How often do you use weed b gone? Is this the spray on concentrate. The button weed has taken over. I just sodded last year. I wonder if it came with the sod? Just noticed this year. I have pulled the weed and the more I pull the more I see.I live in Georgia and called the Georgia extension service for advice.They said no product would kill the weed without killing my St. Augustine..Must be something to kill this stuff!!
We never had buttonweed here until after Hurricane Katrina – it must have blown it in from somewhere. It’s everywhere now and my only consolation is that it is green – oh well – interesting idea of digging down 12 inches, but my lawn is too far gone at this point. I do check back on this site periodically to see if there’s some new idea out there to kill the stuff.
Weed be Gone won’t touch it.and it spreads over the entire yard by fall.the Arg extension agent said to use confront twice.It will come closer to working better than abything else.
ihad luck with a spray called Mansion
ohmigosh! i have been digging a virginia buttonweed root system that must have been established in my flowerbed for years. for the past several years, i’ve pulled it, but when i get to too large a root, i figured it was coming from the holly bush next to my flower bed, so i would quit & tuck it in. well, this year, i took EVERYTHING out of that bed & began to pull at those roots, while being careful not to break them…so i could get to the root of all this evil… it breaks very easily near the surface of the soil, and leading up to the big fat woody roots. i pulled one that was 1/2″ wide and about 6′ long before it finally broke off! my husband thinks i’ve lost my mind. i’ve been after these roots for 2 months. i’ve gotten to one so fat, i had to cut it, it’s over an inch in diameter!!! but i’m keeping segments of the roots and planting them to prove to him that it is that damn weed! i soaked a cloth with roundup and put it over the cut section of root, put a plastic over it & rubber-banded it…. that killed a portion of it, but there’s more. hundreds & hundreds of tiny sprouts will start up after about a week of digging- from the root AND from zillions of tiny seeds in the ground. i think the roots are why it keeps coming back & i think they are almost impossible to follow. when you pull off the top part of the plant, it just grows stronger underground. and it’s very hard to get all the broken root segments out- they make new weeds, too. i’m obsessed.
You all have me terribly discouraged! Has anyone tried Trimec? Read online that works with repeated applications but have not been able to find it in local stores.
I’ll have to check into Mansion and Confront – thanks! We had our yard professionally sprayed about a month ago (two applications, about 10 days apart). It cost me $150 for the treatments and the devil weed is back. I wasn’t able to get anything at Lowes or Home Depot that would touch it without killing the lawn, too.
Why someone who has this plant would be bothered by it is the question. And a second question is why anyone would use a herbicide to kill a native plant. Enormous waste of resources and a threat to other plants and the ecosystem. We discovered it today in our yard and photographed it and I am considering transplanting it. Mowing is a another huge waste of resources and causes a lot of pollution. Mowing should be allowed only by permit, except for making hay two or three times a year. The manufacture and sale of pesticides should be outlawed. Reading this thread makes me wonder whether all the posters simply work for major chemical companies. Learning more about the value of sustainable yards might make some of you change your mindset and make you a lot happier.
I am a small time business owner in the lawn care business. I treat a variety of invasive species, but Virginia buttonweed is in the top 2. Virginia buttonweed is a problem primarily because it grows in the finer lawn turfs of the south and many of us who care about the appearance of our lawns become distressed when we are attacked by this species. It may be present in other areas. I have tried a variety of treatments ( I have splotches in my own yard) pulling it out,digging, treating with a variety of lawn chemicals. The key is preventing photosynthesis in this plant. You could nuke it out with round up (or other glyphosate products)but you would be throwing the baby out with the bath water. If it is a small area put a blackout over the area (a board, a peice of plastic or something of this nature). A metsulfuron product can be very good if you are persistent such as spraying the affected area on a regular basis for a period of 6 weeks. It can be initially expensive but if you have a small pump up sprayer you may focus the spray specifically on the affected area and make a 2 ounce container last a very long time. In all the strategies I use I try to stop the photosynthetic process. As for you Aubrey, why don’t you try smoking it. You are a very rude disgusting communistic pig of a person who has no consideration for the fine people who post and seem to care about others.
I am a self employed lawn care professional spraying lawns in coastal Ga. for 14 years. Try ronstar in Feb. as a preemergent then image @ so. trimec at the lower rates after greenup. This will help control it in st. aug. @ centipede with out injury. Be careful!
I haven’t tried it yet, but I have been told and read reports that Wipe-Out Tough Weed works well although it may take several applications.
I am also having a big problem with Virginia Buttonweed. I live in coastal Georgia. Where can I find ronstar or/and trimec in our area? I have seen image in Home Depot.
It looks like many products treat Virginia Buttonweed;but MARE SURE your St. Augustine is Not “Floratam St. Augustine”. I used Bayer product. It killed Virginia buttonweed for sure…my lawn also. Please read product information first.
Careful, C. Sam. You too could be called “a very rude disgusting communistic pig of a person who has no consideration for the fine people who post and seem to care about others,” by some peddler of environmental poison, as I was a few months ago.
I sincerely do not understand why some people want a monoculture lawn rather than a FREE native-plant yard. Is using herbicides necessary to satisfy some anti-natural desire? On the other hand, the diversity of human beings is as important and interesting as the diversity of plants and other animals on our planet.
Weird when someone MAKING MONEY off his poison sales calls a purist a name that some may consider derogatory. Sounded like someone from the Cold War Era who doesn’t know it is over.