Creeping bentgrass... confirmed?

So I did some sleuthing and to the best of my grass identification skills (which admittedly are extremely poor), I believe I have successfully identified the front lawn turf invader to be creeping bentgrass. It has really grown quite a bit since a year ago and continues to spread. Something must be done. But before I get to that, here's how I went about identifying it.

I went off of my initial guess made last year as a starting point and searched for how to identify creeping bentgrass. This led me to this very useful and informative site from North Carolina State University's TurfFiles which has a profile page for creeping bentgrass describing it's various plant characteristics, including photos.

This led me out into the lawn with my macro lens to see if I could gets some photos of these key plant parts to help identify it and hopefully confirm or deny the identity by comparing with this site.
I was only able to get photos of some of parts as I didn't have much time. However, after inspecting the plant a bit and the photos compared with the TurfFiles photos it already looked like a match to me, but I'll get to that in a sec.

I also remembered a handy tool for identifying grass that I had tinkered with from Purdue University in the past. This tool helps to narrow down an identification based on some of the plant characteristics: vernation, ligule, auricles, leaf tip, leaf surface, mid-rib, collar, growth, and seedhead. I'm certainly still learning about these little plant details (never would have guessed that there'd be so many parts to grass), but I found the tufgrass identification guide linked from the tool to be a good introduction. Using this tool, I entered the characteristics that I was the most certain about (and by certain, I mean not at all certain):

1. Membranous ligule
2. Absent Auricles
3. Pointed leaf tip

At this point the tool had already filtered the possible contenders with a 100% match to just two: creeping bentgrass and colonial bentgrass. Additionally, I entered the leaf surface as ridged, but this didn't change anything as they both have that as well (and it turns out all but growth habit are the same between the two). Here are my photos that show these things:

A bit of a plant that I pulled

Shows the logn membranous ligule (the white
part) and the lack of auricles

After pulling back the blade

Rotated and even closer.

The blade tip pointed (the boat-shaped tip of a blade of kentucky bluegrass can
also be seen to the right)

So, the next step is to discern between colonial and creeping bentgrass. The nice thing about the tool is that you can view photographs of each of the parts for each specific type of grass, in addition to more specific information about it. It further states that colonial bentgrass has a short membranous ligule, while creeping bentgrass has a long ligule, with photos showing each. So even without knowing anything else other than these 3 or 4 attributes, the long ligule distinguishes the two.

But there's more. For colonial bentgrass it states:

"Technically possesses rhizomes and stolons they are generally absent and this species assumes a bunch-type growth habit."

 And creeping bentgrass:

"Bluish-green color, very fine leaf texture, tall membranous ligule, tolerates close 1/2 inch. Leaves may appear slightly rough along the edges, strongly stoloniferous."

So furthermore the two can be distinguished by their growth habits. One of the first things I noticed about the grass when I saw it was how it appeared to grow "horizontally" (likely via stolons, but I've yet to confirm this). It doesn't sound like colonial bentgrass would grow like this.

So there you have it: a positive identification... ?

Assuming so (and I feel confidently enough), the next step is to take action; and Tenacity herbicide sounds like the best available option. More to come.

Front lawn update

The front lawn is really doing great. I've very satisfied with it and feel great about all the work I've put into it over the last few years.

Here are some photos:

Today I transplanted some grass growing into of the garden beds to some small bare spots in the lawn.

My one last (for now) issue is the patches of mysterious evil grass #3 (#1 being orchardgrass, #2 being tall fescue). You can see them clearly in the following photos as the lighter green patches:

I don't have an ID on this grass yet, but one possibility is creeping bentgrass. I took some closer photos last year.

I was thinking that I'd just spray it with Roundup and replant this fall. However, I was doing some searching and if it is in fact creeping bentgrass, I found that there is a selective herbicide (active ingredient mesotrione) that supposedly will kill it without harming kentucky bluegrass (among other turf grasses)! One product based on it is called Tenacity which it seems people are having good results with for killing bentgrass. But it also kills a number of other weeds including crabgrass! It's rather expensive (about $75 for an 8 oz bottle of concentrate) as these chemicals seem to be, however, if that means I wouldn't need to do pre-emergent crabgrass prevention every year, it could be just as cost effective if not cheaper to go this route.

However, I'm getting ahead of myself. The first step is to ID it. This is not my forte, but I'll try my best. Here's some information I found on how to ID it. I'll report back.

A plant I can easily identify

I found a most unwelcome visitor in our yard this weekend:

(in focus behind the other plant)

Poison Ivy. Nasty stuff for those who are allergic, like me.

I have found poison ivy in and near our property before, but not very often (only 4-5 times in the several years since we moved in), so I don't frequently look out for it specifically.

This past week I got an itchy rash on my arm, feet, and leg - just small areas, nothing serious. I had no idea what caused it at the time, but it looked very similar to poison ivy rash that I'm all too familiar with from past encounters. Still it didn't make sense since I hadn't been out in the yard other than mowing.

But this morning I noticed the rather large poison ivy plant in the first photo above and that confirmed it for me. I went on the hunt for more and found several others throughout the yard. In our backyard, most of the yard is very shaded and instead of mulching we just leave the leaves that fall during the fall and more or less leave it as is. Throughout the year various weeds and plants inevitably grow here. I occasionally will spray them with Round Up when they get out of control, but I don't go crazy over it as it takes quite a bit of time and herbicide to spray them all. I'm not out in that part of the yard very often, but our dog is, and I presume that is how I was somehow exposed to it.

Years ago I got a pretty bad rash in places all over my body. I unknowingly got into some and likely got it on my shoes, then my hands and/or under my fingernails, and proceeded to spread it everywhere I touched. Needless to say it wasn't fun and wasn't something that I wanted to go through again, so I proceeded to spend many hours researching it on the Internet to learn not only how to treat it, but also identify it. I forget what I ended up using to treat it (I don't remember it working particularly well), but I do remember very well how to ID it. These days it sticks out to me like a sore thumb and I can spot it very easily. I feel like this post wouldn't be complete if I didn't provide some of my tips, so here are my general identification guidelines (nothing scientific here):

1. Location. Look for it at edges of grass fields, or just into a shady area/forest, under and growing up trees that are in the open or receive some sunlight. I've also seen patches growing in unmowed overgrown areas in the middle of fields. They generally seem need some light, but not necessarily full sun (they seem to like a bit of shading). They certainly don't get anywhere near full sun where they are in our yard.
2. Leaves. Look for three leaves to a stem (generally). The leaves can be very large or small (I generally see the large leaves most frequently on vines). The leaves sometimes don't look very symmetrical and can take on various irregular shapes. The leaves are very brittle, so in a more  trafficked place look for damaged leaves.
3. When in vine form, look for external roots on the vine (looks "hairy").

That's about all I've got, I think. Some other factoids:

1. Dogs aren't allergic to it. Not all humans are allergic to it either.
2. Once a rash has broken out on the skin it has been absorbed by the body and can no longer be spread. But it can spread if it's under your fingernail, on your shoe, etc.
3. The plant has to be broken in order to be exposed to it, but as mentioned the plant is extremely brittle. I've never tested to confirm this.

Source: internet research from years ago and my own observations over the years since then.

Anyway, I sprayed all the poison ivy I found in our backyard with Round Up Poison Ivy - just regular Round Up is not enough to kill it (I tried when I first found some in our yard and it came right back). Perhaps this is more indication that there is enough light to grow supina bluegrass back there!

New invader

I noticed this grass growing near the edge of our lot in the front yard:

I'm not sure what it is and will need to do some research to see if I can figure it out. It appears to grow close to the ground and more laterally (via stolons?). The color is somewhat grayish green, lighter in color than nearby Kentucky bluegrass.

My initial thinking is that it might be creeping bentgrass, but I'll need to investigate more. I recall seeing some foreign grass in this area last year and I actually tried to kill it with roundup, but I may have missed some if it is in fact the same thing.

What else am I growing??

I have noticed this other "grass" growing in some of the newly seeded areas. In fact, there was some in the picture I posted the other day.

Up until now I have assumed that it was just leftover grass that I missed when I sprayed with RoundUp. But there is quite a bit of it and I couldn't believe that much could have survived what looked so utterly dead. Frankly, I'm a bit upset about it since it looks similar to the grass I was trying to kill in the first place - could it possibly have survived RoundUp?? I wondered. So today I took a closer look to see if perhaps I could ID it and what I found was rather peculiar. Look closely:

See it? How about in this photo of some I pulled up?

That's right, it's the straw. I am also growing straw. It's only growing in the areas where I put down straw.

So what is it really? I'm not total sure. I'm waiting for a call back from the place I purchased it, but it sure looks to me like wheat.

As long as it's not perennial and doesn't produce any more seeds, I don't think it'll be a problem. The odd thing is that I used straw from the same place earlier this year and I don't recall this happening, but perhaps conditions weren't good for germination at that time of the year. Though, I do remember noticing that the seedheads appeared to be void of seeds.

I guess I'll need to find a new source for my future straw needs.

What kind of grass is this?

Ok, so our backyard has hodgepodge of all sorts of various type of grasses now. It really is quite the mix as evidenced by this photo I took of it this evening:

Mixture of grasses.

But, I found a patch - the dense patch of lighter green right in the middle of this photo - that is really, really nice! It's so soft and I think if I knew what it was I would be extremely temped to replant the whole lawn with it this fall (you already knew that I'm crazy right? yep.)! But what is it?? I don't know how to discern that...

I had to go take some more pictures of it mid-blog:

A closer look.

Uncut blade tip (back)

Uncut blade tip (front)

A closer view of the patch of it.

The photo of my finger sort of gives some scale, but I'd say it is roughly Kentucky bluegrass size. I pretty certain that it's not fine fescue (unless there is a variety that is not as fine) and definitely not tall fescue as there is plenty of that back there. My best guess is that it is in fact Kentucky bluegrass, but what variety? The seed mix I planted earlier this spring contained 20% Bewitched Kentucky bluegrass, so if it isn't some of the existing grass that is what it likely is, but unfortunately I don't know. I really don't see much of it elsewhere in the lawn, although I did see some that looks similar in other areas. I've been wondering if any of the Kentucky bluegrass in the seed mix was able to grow, and if that is what it is, oh how tempting it will be buy a bag of it this fall...

Later this summer will be interesting as I'll have to decide what to do back there. Since the Certainty herbicide isn't recommended for use on primarily fine fescue lawns, I don't know how I'll ever get rid of the tall fescue that is there aside from pulling it by hand - or killing everything and starting fresh. I'll wait and see how things turn out.