Broadleaf dock

About

Broadleaf dock is a big-leaved, taprooted perennial related to curly dock. It handles frequent mowing well, so it hangs on in lawns, pastures and field edges.

Also called bitter dock, broad-leaved dock

How to identify it

Look for

Leaves are large (up to about 12 inches long and 6 inches wide), flat and broad with a heart-shaped base and short white hairs under the leaf stalks and veins. Flower stalks reach 3 to 4 feet, and the seed wings have small spiny teeth. The taproot is thick and usually branched.

Look-alikes

Curly dock has narrower, strongly wavy leaves that taper at the base and seed wings without teeth.

Where it grows

Lawns, pastures, meadows, ditch banks and damp waste areas on most soils; most common east of the Mississippi and in the Pacific Northwest.

When

Rosettes grow in cool weather; plants seldom flower their first season and bloom from late spring into summer after that.

How it spreads

By seed (about 100 to over 60,000 per plant, lasting 40 years or more in soil) and by regrowth from the crown and branched taproot.

Most common in

What to do, gentlest first

Start at the top. Weed killers are a last step; always read and follow the label.

1. Keep lawns dense Prevent

   Healthy, well-fed turf leaves little room for dock seedlings. Don't let seed stalks ripen.

2. Dig out crowns By hand

   Dig when the soil is moist, taking the crown and upper root. Cutting plants back often (weekly for a few months) also drains the root.

   Replant or mulch the hole so new seedlings don't fill it.

3. Broadleaf lawn herbicide or spot spray Conventional spray

   In lawns use a 2,4-D product; in beds and bare ground, spot-treat leaves with glyphosate.

   Read and follow the label; many lawn and brush herbicides also kill garden plants.

Uses, wildlife and pets

Pets

Toxic to dogs, cats and horses (ASPCA lists dock and sorrel, Rumex, as toxic); livestock can be poisoned if they eat a lot of it.