Will Creeping Charlie Spread by Mowing

At the back of my yard, up the hill, where the grass is relatively weak, Creeping Charlie is taking over. Background When we moved in, things were under control, but I starved the grass with no food and by bagging clippings. Then, I dethatched in the fall, got hit hard with white grubs in the spring, and lost half of the grass.

I then bought too tier service, who hit Charlie hard with full strength poisons, and overfed with nitrogen. The grass looked fine, but had weak roots, and was far from organic... And way beyond what I can afford. I'm now trying to reestablish to a healthy organic stand of turfgrass, on my own. I learned I was better off learning to do it myself, even if I had to suffer a few painful lessons from Mother Nature.

The Problem At the back of my yard, up the hill, where the grass is relatively weak, Creeping Charlie is taking over. About 10% of this area has no grass left, about 40% is mostly Charlie, and the rest has at least some of the stuff. (Down the hill where the grass is more healthy, eliminating it remains a possibility)

I tried the Borax treatment (but could find only powdered Borax, of uncertain strength) with no success. Killex did very little too. The more vigorous patches are beginning to flower, and I worry that mowing it over will only spread it more. (is this true? Does it spread when you mow?)

You're ebook recommended raking it out, but when I try I simply pull up some thatch, giving Charlie more light and room to grow. AT best Charlie is less tangled, and easier to pluck by hand... But there's way too much to pull up Charlie by hand (down the hill perhaps)

Other comments- It's a non trivial job to get sufficient compost up the hill. I'll try this (mushroom compost? Or something else?) but hate the thought this will feed Charlie too!

- I understand Borax is a once or twice only treatment... I may have used to little, but want to be safe, not sorry.

- I understand Killex may work better in the fall as Charlie will take it down to the roots a little better

What principles are key to knocking Charlie back, and making slow steady progress to having healthy lush natural turfgrass?

What do you recommend, now, soon, in the summer and fall and going forward?

Thanks muchRon

Doug says:

The most important thing in creating a lawn is to understand the natural principle that Mother Nature abhors a vaccuum. If there's a bare patch of ground, she fills it with something. That's the way it works in lawns and gardens and fields and forests. Ma fills empty spaces.

So our jobs as gardeners is to fill those spaces with healthy plants before she does. She'll let us do that but as soon as things get weak, she'll take over.

On a lawn, fill in the spaces with grass seed. That's your first job. Overseed - spread at least 4 pounds of seed per 1000 square feet to thicken up the turf. Get that turf thick! That will stop the spread of the weeds.

Use perennial rye grass. It established the best with overseeding and you won't tell the difference between it and fancier varieties.

Get organic microorganisms established. If you can't use compost, learn to make and use compost tea as that gets the microorganisms going just as well. www.simplegiftsfarm.com has all the instructions you need to know. Use organic matter such as peat moss to replace the organic matter in the compost you don't have.

Those are your first two steps to thicken up and get your lawn living again.

I wont' comment on Killex. I don't believe that poisoning myself is worth it just to kill a few small weeds. I'd rather have weeds than poison any day. I've seen too much research pointing out the problems and how we track this stuff into our homes even when we think we aren't. I won't rant on about this but... we all make choices and that's one I'm very comfortable making. Weeds versus poison. Hmmm

Seeding by mowing. If the plant has set seed, and you mow the seedheads off - then yes, you're spreading it. But if it hasn't set seed then you're fine.

Do you have another question about creeping charlie and seeding?