Reading…

Graded on dew point: under 55°F is dry, 75°F and up is Full Swamp. Down here it is mostly the second one.

The neighborhood stations

Live radar over the bayou

Radar frames from RainViewer, refreshed every few minutes; base map © OpenStreetMap contributors © CARTO. The dot is our street. Frames past the present are the short-range nowcast and are labeled as such.

The outlook

The rain ledger

Grass vs Grass: the bayou face-off

Reading the rain gauges…

Swamp’s Most Wanted

The repeat offenders in a Panhandle lawn. Mugshots, distinguishing features, last known methods of removal.

At large BOC-2026-0817 · BUTTONWEED, VIRGINIA

Virginia Buttonweed

Diodia virginiana

Aliases

Buttonweed. Files as an annual in conversation and a perennial in fact.

Wanted for

Matting flat over thin centipede. Regrowing from every root fragment left behind by a hand pull.

Last seen

Wet low ground and valve-box corners, in any yard watered light and often.

Marks

Opposite leaves clasped straight to the stem with no stalk. White flowers in four-pointed stars, where leaf meets stem. Foliage often mottled yellow from a virus it carries.

If apprehended

Spring, on tender new growth. By late summer the plant shrugs off what would have worked in April. Metsulfuron alone only rates fair on it, 70 to 79 percent, and centipede caps that product at 0.5 oz per acre. Celsius rates 80 to 100 percent and is listed safe on centipede at label rates. Add a non-ionic surfactant at 0.25 percent by volume, then stop watering light and often.

At large BOC-2026-0114 · SPURGE, SPOTTED

Spotted Spurge

Euphorbia maculata

Aliases

Prostrate spurge. Filed some years as Chamaesyce maculata.

Wanted for

Occupying bare sand. Loitering along hot driveway edges. Germinating all summer while you wait for spring.

Last seen

Full sun, compacted sand, any patch the grass already surrendered.

Marks

Flat mat radiating from one central taproot. Small paired leaves, often a dark blotch. Snap a stem and it bleeds milky white.

If apprehended

Pull the whole mat by that central root while it is young, gloves on, the sap irritates skin. Pre-emergent in spring. Listed on the Celsius label at the low rate, 0.057 oz per 1,000 sq ft.

At large BOC-2026-0207 · DOLLARWEED

Dollarweed

Hydrocotyle umbellata

Aliases

Pennywort. Answers to nothing.

Wanted for

Impersonating a lily pad on dry land. Living entirely off your irrigation schedule.

Last seen

Low spots, valve boxes, downspout runs, any yard watered more than twice a week.

Marks

Round coin of a leaf with the stem attached dead center, glossy, held up on its own little stalk.

If apprehended

This is a water problem wearing a weed costume. Note the arithmetic on centipede: the metsulfuron label lists dollarweed at 0.5 to 1 oz per acre, and centipede tolerates at most 0.5 oz per acre. You are permitted the very bottom of the band and not one drop more. Turn the water down.

At large BOC-2026-0311 · BAHIAGRASS

Bahiagrass

Paspalum notatum

Aliases

Pensacola bahia. Argentine bahia. Around here, that ugly grass.

Wanted for

Posing as lawn. Throwing seed heads back up within days of a mow. Dulling blades and calling it character.

Last seen

Road shoulders and thin centipede, spreading along whatever line the mower travels.

Marks

Two spikes in a narrow V on a tall bare stalk. Coarse, wide, tougher than everything beside it.

If apprehended

The window on centipede is narrow but real. Metsulfuron lists bahiagrass at 0.25 to 0.75 oz per acre, centipede tolerates 0.25 to 0.5, so the workable overlap is 0.25 to 0.5 oz per acre. The same label warns against using it where bahiagrass is the turf you wanted, which is exactly the trick being played on it.

Reward: none. It is a lawn. Rates above are read off the product labels, not off a forum post, and the label on the jug in your hand is the one that governs.

Also on the board

Crabgrass

Digitaria sanguinalis

How to spot it. Sprawling star-shaped clump, wide pale blades, flat to the ground.

How to get rid of it. Pre-emergent in late winter is the whole game: once it is up, it is a season-long guest. Hand pull small clumps before they seed. Mow high, a thick lawn crowds it out.

Nutsedge

Cyperus rotundus

How to spot it. Bright yellow-green, grows faster than the lawn, triangular stem you can feel by rolling it.

How to get rid of it. Not a grass, so grass herbicides do nothing. Pulling leaves the nutlets behind and it comes back thicker. Needs a sedge-specific product (halosulfuron or sulfentrazone).

Chamberbitter

Phyllanthus urinaria

How to spot it. Looks like a tiny mimosa seedling; the tell is a row of green warty fruits under each branch.

How to get rid of it. Pull it before those fruits ripen or you have seeded next year yourself. Pre-emergent in spring. It thrives in thin turf, so thicken the lawn.

Doveweed

Murdannia nudiflora

How to spot it. Thick rubbery blades that mat over the grass, late to show up, loves soggy ground.

How to get rid of it. One of the hardest here. Comes up late (May onward) so a single early pre-emergent misses it. Reduce watering, improve drainage, treat while it is small.

Florida Betony

Stachys floridana

How to spot it. Mint-square stem, pink tubular flowers, and a white segmented tuber underground that looks like a rattlesnake tail.

How to get rid of it. The tuber is why it laughs at pulling. Cool-season weed, so hit it in fall and winter, not August. A dense summer lawn suppresses it.

Common Lespedeza

Kummerowia striata

How to spot it. Goes by Japanese clover. Three smooth oblong leaflets with the veins running nearly straight across them, and tiny pink-purple pea flowers in the leaf joints.

How to get rid of it. Most spring pre-emergents give erratic results on it. Dithiopyr is the exception. Once it is up, atrazine and simazine both rate excellent and both are labeled for centipede. Stems turn woody by late summer and it hangs on, so go early and mow higher.

Read the label before anything goes in a sprayer. Centipede and St. Augustine are damaged by several common broadleaf products, and heat makes that worse, so the same bottle that saves a Bermuda lawn can wreck a centipede one. The Trimec Southern label adds: nothing on centipede during spring green-up, the stretch between dormancy and active growth. Control notes follow UF/IFAS, UGA and Clemson.

Mugshots via Wikimedia Commons: centipede (CC BY-SA 3.0) · zoysia (CC BY-SA 3.0) · staug (CC BY-SA 3.0) · bermuda (CC BY 2.0) · crabgrass (CC0) · dollarweed (CC BY 2.0) · nutsedge (CC BY-SA 4.0) · chamberbitter (CC BY-SA 3.0) · doveweed (CC BY-SA 3.0) · betony (CC0) · spurge (CC0) · bahia (CC BY 2.0) · buttonweed (CC BY-SA 3.0) · lespedeza (CC BY 2.0)