Weed control help, please!?

I've got some phlox that my kids gave me for Mother's Day a few years ago. I put down Preen before things start to grow in the spring, but it seems like before long I've got this lush carpet of phlox with the stalks of what appear to be grass popping through. My husband says that they're a type of weed that if you pull them out, even if you try to keep all the roots attached and get it all, there will still be some left behind that will procreate like mad. I've tried squirting liquid weed killers on the individual weed stalks, without getting the phlox, but the problem persists.





Anything I can do, either preventative or otherwise? I'd hate to do something too dramatic, like getting rid of everything and starting over, since the kids gave me the plants. But so many grass-like weed spears shoot up about the phlox that it looks bad.





Thanks for the help!





FYI, we live in the Midwest.

Weed control help, please!?
you have nut sedge it sounds like.


there is a product called sedgehammer that will kill it that won't hurt the phlox.


keep using the preen for the other weed control too though
Reply:i had a similar problem. just persistence with hand weeding is the best. or dig out the healthiest phlox, destroy the undesirables the replant the phlox.
Reply:You did the first thing I would have suggested, a pre-emergent. Although it may not have worked on the weeds you have.





First identify the weed to apply the best option.


Look here first and see if you can find it:


http://www.weedalert.com/
Reply:If you try to use a weed killer on the phlox to kill the weeds growing with it, the likely hood of it killing the good with the bad is high due to the roots inner-locking. Pull the weeds as much as possible. Then feed the phlox as often as possible to choke out the weeds. If problem persists, use a paint brush dipped in weed killer to individually kill the weeds by just touching the blade with weed killer.

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