How to Kill Liriope
Lirope is an invasive monkey grass species that many people dislike. They spread quickly and can take out flowerbeds and overrun the lawn making it look like nothing but weeds. It might take several seasons to kill Lirope as it takes several turns of cultivation and herbicidal treatments to completely kill it.
- Rototill the ground everywhere that you see Lirope growing. This could mean that you will lose some of your flowers or chunks of your lawn.
- Rake the area that you have tilled with a heavy metal rake. You want to pull up from the ground as much as possible of the plant. The less that there is remaining, the more that it has to work to create new roots and spread. Do not spray the ground or do anything until a new generation of Lirope starts to sprout in the cultivated area.
- Spray the baby Lirope with an herbicide that contains the chemical glyphosate. If there are plants close by that you want to keep, and then cover them completely with a piece of cardboard so that the spray does not directly touch them. Understand that it may still kill the plant you wish to keep by getting into the soil and attacking the roots. Spray the Lirope with the herbicide in the spring, winter, fall and summer.
- Repeat these steps as needed until all the invasive monkey grass has been killed. It may take several seasons, even years, to completely kill the plant as it has a very large root system that it grows from that spreads very quickly.