Weeds are unwanted plants that grow among the lawn grass. Maple trees typically explode with seeds early in the summer months. All homeowners must maintain their pristine lawn by eliminating intruding plant species. You’re better off familiarizing yourself with how to get rid of maple tree seedlings in lawn grass to keep your turf as pure as possible.
If you aren’t planning on growing other trees, maple tree seedlings are unwanted additions to your backyard. They take away precious nutrients and make it harder to maintain a perfect lawn.
You Don’t Need Maple Tree Seedlings On Your Lawn
Maple trees produce unique seedlings. They look like helicopter blades with a seed linking the pair of wings at the center. Their descent from a maple tree is quite a sight, but you shouldn’t enjoy the show just yet.
The falling seedlings will drop onto your grass and sprout. Once they set their feet into the grass, it will get harder to pluck away because their roots grow deep into the soil. To keep your lawn healthy, you need to ensure that the grass is getting all the nutrients it needs. Your lawn needs grass species, and anything else is only taking away precious nutrients from the grass.
However, you can quickly clear your lawn of invasive maple seedlings. By using a combination of general maintenance and chemical treatment, you’ll eventually attain a pure stand of your favorite lawn grass.
Before descending on your lawn with murderous intent, you’ll first need a couple of things to get rid of the maple tree seedlings sprouting in your yard.
- Shovel or digging hoe
- A watering can, hose, or a sprinkler system
- Foliar herbicide
- Spray applicator
- Working gloves
Here’s How To Get Rid of Maple Seedlings On Your Lawn:
1. Irrigate The Soil
The easiest way to get rid of maple tree seedlings from lawn grass is to pull them out. Once they drop from the maple tree, the seeds will sprout and dig into the soil to establish themselves. You should stop the process by taking them off the ground.
Irrigating the soil makes it easier to pull out the seedlings. Moisture softens the ground and allows you to work at ease.
Water the soil one day before working on the seedlings. You can use a hose or sprinkler to irrigate the lawn. Make sure you do so slowly, ensuring that the ground gets a long, thorough soak.
Soil with plenty of moisture will quickly give up maple tree seedlings growing inside them. Additionally, herbicides work exceptionally well on moistened soil.
2. Dig Up Maple Tree Seedlings
Once the ground is watered, you should give it a rest until the following day. Then, start with the smaller tree seedlings. These are primarily juvenile forms that have yet to get a good grip on the ground, so they’ll be the easiest to pull out.
For the larger, more established tree seedlings, use your shovel or digging hoe. Dig up the maple tree seedlings and ensure that you’ve taken out all or at least a significant portion of their root system from the ground.
The roots are pretty critical to the well-being of a tree. Once you eliminate the lower section, the seedlings won’t grow back.
3. Treat The Tree Saplings With Herbicide
Some seedlings will have already gotten a head start and become too large to pull out of the ground. For these mature sprouts, herbicides come in handy.
Nothing stands in the way of glyphosate products. Nevertheless, it is a toxic chemical designed to get rid of unwanted plants. As a result, you must read all the instructions before using chemicals. Also, make sure you implement all the safety precautions and wear gloves while applying the product.
Watch out for large seedlings sprouting from the ground. Cut the stems at ground level and follow up by applying the glyphosate product to the exposed flesh.
The stem bears tubes that transport nutrients and water to the entire plant. These will carry the active compounds in the herbicide throughout the plant, eventually killing it.
You should not apply any herbicide to maple sprouts that emerge from the primary root system. These typically connect to the parent tree, and most herbicide product components will quickly travel through the tree and damage it.
If you’ve encountered maple saplings, just cut them off at the ground level. The sprouts also take away a ton of nutrients from the tree, eliminating them and ensuring the tree remains as healthy as possible.
4. Monitor The Turf For Regrowth
Once you’ve taken out all of the sprouts, keep a close watch on your lawn. Maple tree seeds are quick to germinate. You should find germinating seedlings that you may have missed earlier on. Pull them out before they get a proper grip on the soil.
5. Timing Is Key
If you have a maple tree growing on your lawn, you’ll have to deal with an influx of seedlings all year round. Think about the timing and how fast you should act on the seedlings.
Maple seeds will sprout after dropping to the ground. However, in the early stages, it is easier to pull the sprouts from the ground. This is because their roots haven’t sunken too deep, and the seedlings are too delicate.
As time goes by, the seedling establishes, so you will need heavier equipment to dig up the plant. You’ll have to excavate your lawn, and after taking out the juvenile maple, you must regrow the patch of grass.
6. Attack Maple Tree Suckers
Maple tree seedlings don’t just drop from the tree. Instead, suckers often develop from the tree roots and emerge above the ground as juvenile seedlings. However, emerging suckers are usually a sign of a stressed tree. But whether the tree is stable or not, you still need to know how to get rid of maple tree seedlings.
Maple tree suckers are not like seedlings that drop from the tree. You cannot pluck them from the soil. It would be best if you cut it from the main root. Pruning the sucker won’t kill them, but they will grow back after a while.
Additionally, you can identify which plants are sending suckers through the soil. Cut the tree, and you won’t have maple tree seedlings all over your lawn.
7. Get Professional Help
The best method for getting rid of maple tree seedlings in lawns is general care and maintenance of the turf. But most homeowners aren’t keen on the standard procedure and can ignore some seedlings until they’re too big to come off the ground quickly.
Luckily, there are professional landscapers across the state. Some maple tree seedlings grow unnoticed on fences, close to buildings and rock walls. They will damage nearby infrastructure if left unchecked. For such scenarios, you’ll need the pros.
Expert arborists can safely remove unwanted maple trees and overgrown seedlings without damaging your lawn. Granted, taking out an enormous tree will leave a sizable crater in your backyard. However, professional landscapers will return your property to its former glory, minus the intruding maple.
Why Is It Important To Get Rid Of Maple Trees?
Maple trees have an ingenious seed dispersal mechanism while in the wild. The seed is attached to a set of leaves shaped like helicopter rotors. These are mainly dependent on prevailing wind conditions. If the breeze is just right, maple seeds will travel great distances and establish themselves far away from the parent tree.
In your backyard, the maple tree will encounter plenty of barriers, like walls and buildings. These impede how the seeds disperse. That’s why most seedlings will grow just below the tree.
As a homeowner, you don’t need all these seedlings sprouting on your property. They increase the demand for nutrients in your soil. Eventually, as the sprouts gain size, your turfgrass will suffer the most.
Tree roots are robust. Once they get a good grip on the soil, maple sprouts are harder to pull out. Moreover, they take in more nutrients than grass.
As they grow, maple seedlings will develop additional foliage. The extra leaves deny your lawn grass the sunlight it needs to mature. As a result, your lawn will suffer from too many maple sprouts on your property.
General Lawn Care
Nothing beats a good lawn care routine. Even if you can get the best guys to pull out overgrown maple tree seedlings, it’s lawn care that prevents them from sprouting once again. So if you need to find out how to get rid of maple tree seedlings on lawn grass, you should first care for the lawn.
One essential lawn care tip you can use is timely and adequate irrigation. Your grass needs water to thrive. You should give it just enough water and at the right time.
A well-watered lawn has a thick blanket of grass covering the ground. This carpet won’t allow maple sprouts to grow through it.
Moreover, you need to enrich the soil on which your lawn grass grows. Once the grass has access to all the essential nutrients, it will thrive. The foliage will be dense as its root system spreads over a large area. Most weeds and maple tree seedlings will have a more challenging time attaching and thriving in this soil.
Lastly, mow your lawn. Cutting grass stimulates it to grow further. The grass will quickly regrow and fill up your property if you satisfy the lawn’s water and fertilizer requirements. Few foreign species can withstand a thick and rapidly growing turf.
Remember, a healthy lawn is easier to maintain. The grass chokes out competition from weeds and maple tree seedlings.
Final Thoughts
Maple trees are significant vegetation, especially if you’ve got one growing on your lawn. But, while they have a certain aesthetic appeal, you don’t need hundreds of tiny maple seedlings sprouting through your turf.
Once the seedlings are established on your property, they’ll grow deep roots, making it difficult to pull them out. At this point, you will have to call in professional help to help remove the intruding maple tree seedling.
But it is pretty easy to maintain a pristine lawn. Once you know how to get rid of maple tree seedlings in yard grass, get ready to enjoy a beautiful yard with seamless grass growth.
Moreover, you can combine general maintenance tips to keep off maple tree seedlings. Also, chemical products are pretty capable of eliminating maple seedlings. The suckers are harder to kill. However, once you’ve destroyed it at the root level, nothing is going to regrow.
