Try This Cinnamon Hack To Tackle The Weeds In Your Yard

Whether you fall on the gardening side or the lawncare side of plant management, it is likely that you share the same nemesis: weeds. If the maintenance of your home's lawn falls to you, then you're familiar with all of the many phases, trials, and tribulations associated with growing large areas of grass, like overseeding, aeration, mowing, edging, and — of course — weed control. When it comes to managing the inevitable growth of weeds in your lawn, the options seem so endless (and controversial) that the possibilities can quickly become overwhelming.

Those interested in tackling weeds preventatively may be interested to know that cinnamon oil has shown pre-emergent herbicidal properties in a 2021 study in the Molecules scientific journal. The study concluded that at all four tested concentrations, cinnamon oil has "drastic inhibitory effects on germination." This is due to cinnamon's strong allelopathic properties, which can hinder the growth of nearby plants. For those who are interested in controlling lawn weeds without the use of harsh chemicals, this presents an exciting possibility for natural pre-emergent weed prevention. 

It is important to note that cinnamon oil has proven to be promising as a pre-emergent weed preventative, and not as a killer of existing weeds. This means that you'll need to pull all existing weeds before applying cinnamon oil to your lawn if you'd like to end up with a weed-free yard. The same, of course, is true of pre-emergent products that use active ingredients like corn gluten meal. Ingredients used as pre-emergent preventatives — including cinnamon oil — interfere with the process of seed germination. Therefore, they must be applied to the soil before the next round of weed seeds germinate in order to prevent them from developing enough to emerge.

However, there are commercial organic post-emergent weed control products on the market that use cinnamon oil as an active ingredient. These include SaferGro WeedZap, Uncle Steve's Weed Killer, and Ecologic Weed and Grass Killer. Since the use of cinnamon oil for preventative weed control is still in its early stages, experimentation is necessary when making your own treatment. If you're up for a DIY experiment, try spraying water containing 10 drops of cinnamon essential oil and 10 drops of clove oil onto a small section of your lawn's soil. Watch the area to see if fewer weeds emerge in comparison to the rest of the lawn. Consider trying a vinegar-based weed killer for weeds that have already grown in.