I live in France where a British bowling green type lawn doesn’t seem to exist. I inherited the lawn 3 years ago from a couple who never touched it except to mow it, for 20 odd years.
I can’t name the weeds - apart from daisies, clover and buttercups. - all the rest are all greenery with strong roots Also some kind of pre-historic grass that shown 3 inches of greenery but when you tug, it’s min 2 feet long!
I tried a commercial weed-killer using a heavy pump spray but all that did was burn the weeds leaves and part of the roots, leaving a nice empty space which has now filled up with new weeds in just 2 weeks.
This past weekend, I decided to try the hard way on hands and knees armed with a sharp trowel but it’s really back-breaking because there are so many. Any ideas for some sort of selective weed-killer that doesn’t kill the grass too?
We too bought a weed conservation zone. A garden entirely intended for the dogs, which they won’t walk it when mown because it is quite frankly spiky. I have thought of replacing it with a Japanese stone garden
Monet much?
I turned a rough previous veg patch with loads of brambles into a lovely lawn back in Bretagne but it took a few years of continual mowing everything and as we got the brambles out, we sowed and kept sowing grass seeds bought from Super U as they were not expensive and did not matter if they did not take but they did. Again, kept cutting everything as it grew and continued weeding out the bigger stuff and sowing, sowing and sowing. Eventually after a few years we ended up with a beautiful green lawn with no weeds and just the odd bit of clover which was good for the insects. We never ever used any weedkiller of any sort, just hard manual work which paid off. No real lawns here, all artificial which I shall also lay when the site is finally cleared and levelled, everything dies in the heat and there is a ban on watering anyway.
Sorry, can’t help, can’t even understand, why on earth you would want to kill wildflowers. Each to his own 
We don’t have the right conditions for it. I grew up on the Côte d’Azur with a lovely looking lawn which was horrible to walk on barefoot, or sit or lie on. Completely unnatural and a waste of water and effort. Have a camomile lawn or a clover lawn instead.
Roughly which area of France are you in @ROUSSELOT_Joyce_Ann ? Where we are (Normandy) we found that regular mowing dealt with most things plus @Shiba 's suggestion of spreading grass seed in bare patches worked well after a good few years but then we do get a reasonable amount of rain. If you are much further south that that, I would have thought it was a lost cause
Or buy plaques de gazon which turn into a mass of weeds as my neighbour and my son discovered after lovingly tending them and watering daily - both have artificial now and are very happy indeed.
Firstly, it’s not the season to get new grass seed established, which you need to do quickly to stop the weeds colonising bare patches, as you’ve discovered. Sooo…depending whereabouts you are, from September onwards, assuming the weeds are still green, try to tap up a local farmer for some weedkiller that they use on winter wheat. That will kill off the broad-leaved weeds. Then around October time (assuming it rains in your area in October!) sow ray grass anglais (and white clover if you don’t mind a mix. It flowers but also stays green and feeds the grass).
The running grass could be couch (chien dent) or Bermuda grass. Either way, the only solutions are to keep digging it out (for the rest of your life) or treat very selectively with glyphosate (again supplied by a sympathetic neighbouring farmer). Laying a thick plastic sheet under the runner and painting it with glypho, allowing it to dry before removing the sheet works well. Good luck.
Weeds are green and unless looking closely regular mowing keeps your patch of green looking good.
Its the moles you need to worry about especially with all the rain we have had, its a moles paradise.
Just a gentle reminder… for those wanting to use chemicals… please check that you are not in a “chemical-free” zone…
Our Commune has signed-up to a charter which forbids all sorts of chemicals and stuff which (although allowable) would be bad for the Environment…
and, of course, some stuff has been banned by the Government…
Back-breaking weeding is painful and hard work… and this has brought about a different mind-set as to what is “attractive”… visually-pleasing… with the emphasis now on what is pleasing for the insects/birds/small mammals… rather than what is pristine and pleasing to humans… 
I can confirm that regular mowing can give us the best of both worlds… just don’t mow too short or it turns to biscuit … 
Given the climate where we live, an English-style lawn is a pipe dream, not that personally I would want one. We have settled for a couple of complete mows at the beginning and end of the growing season, with the rest of the time being spent making walkways through whatever happens to be growing. Usually, there is a climate-imposed moratorium in July and August anyway, as anything that dares to peep its head out of the ground instantaneously shrivels in the heat of the day. The weeds have their say of course, as do the moles and “rats taupiers”. Having long grass/weeds/clover in most parts of the garden is actually rather nice, and brilliant for all sorts of insects, butterflies, birds, and hares, so all in all, I’ve stopped grumbling. It also saves on petrol for the lawnmower (when the latter isn’t actually broken for some reason or other, usually due to fallen sticks, stones thrown up by moles, and the like, and in the repair workshop for 3 weeks minimum because this is France, and after sales service is what it is).
Couldn’t agree more! We’ve done the same.
we were asked to leave mowing until 21st June “at the earliest”… and then, to wait until we’ve 4/5 consecutive days of sunshine to dry it before attempting cutting…
With our weather… still waiting for “5 days of sunshine”… but I’ve cheated a little at the weekend and regretted it as the damp grass/weeds merely tore… and I had to give up.
EDIT: I carefully try to miss the clumps which flower from now on… it’s the earlier flowering I need to sort out…
Sensible.
If you want it to look pristine, mow / mulch often, removing tiny amounts of grass each time. Ideally, get yourself a robot mower which does just that. The lawns around here (L&G) mown by robots look super.
Personally, watching the number of bees that are attracted to clover / dandelions /etc the last thing on earth I would be doing in our current world is using weed killer on weeds.
Agreed. We’ve recently done a deal with our robot mower, called Cedders. In return for turning over 20% of the lawn into (very) long grass, ie amateur re-wilding, we’ve now let him mow another 20% that was rough ground, originally covered in large, tough weeds. Two months later of light mowing by him, with his blades set very high, automatically mulching his shavings and it’s fairly clear the rough ground has changed its botanical makeup. It is now covered with clover, daisies, dandelions and buttercups galore. We and Cedders are delighted, and the multiple insects and bees etc appear suitably grateful…
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I’ve let both my gardens run wild this year. Most of it will die down and flatten for me to fairly easily tidy up after Autumn. Good for nature, and good for my aching back - a bonus!
I have to say that “No mow May” would be a disaster here as it grows at its most strongly in May and becomes completely unmowable after not much more that a week! If you fancy brush-cutting metre-high grass in June, feel free 
Does Cedders deal with longish grass? We are very disappinted with the last couple of lawnmowers we bought (supposedly heavy duty) that won’t tackle anything longer than about 2cm…
My grasses are close to 2 metres high which die down and which I strim rake and mow later in the year. But my gardens are of a manageable size.
With bigger gardens or land, there are I’m sure areas that can be left to go wild. It all helps.