New Sod Sprouting Nutsedge

Q: We need some advice. We recently hired someone (July 9-12) to redo our front lawn. We wanted to remove the existing flower beds, bermuda grass and regrade the front lawn, and install all new Tift tuff Bermuda sod. One of the flower beds had liriope and now we have liriope growing thru the new sod where the bed was as well as some sprouting in other areas of lawn where there was not any before. The area where the bed was with the liriope it’s a lot and it’s only been 2 weeks as of today. “How” and “when” do we address or tackle this issue without it killing the newly installed sod?

A: From my experience, I think we’re talking about two plants: I have no doubt you have some liriope that is growing into the sod, but the other plant that’s randomly sprouting in the sod I believe is nutsedge. My neighbor laid Emerald zoysia sod this spring, and he has random sprouts of nutsedge in his grass. In a perfect world, sod producers would produce sod that is completely weed-free, but nut grass is terribly invasive and difficult to detect and control. I doubt you could get satisfaction from your sod dealer (but try), so it’s up to you to control the nutsedge yourself. The easiest way is to spot spray with a product containing halosulfuron. The individual use pack is probably all you need. Walk around your lawn and spot spray each leaf of nutsedge that you see. Afterwards, apply a half-gallon of water to each spot to take the chemical down to the roots of the plant. Don’t expect immediate results, but about three weeks from now you should see yellowing and dead nutsedge. Although liriope and nutsedge leaves are similar, halosulfuron does not control liriope, so you’ll have to dig it out with a trowel.