Make sure the newspaper and cardboard are soaked before covering them.

Weeds are part of having a garden, even if you kill them all now they'll come back before long because birds and other animals will scatter seeds. Weed regularly and properly (pull them out by the roots, don't just break off the part you can see), keep a good layer of mulch over the bed, and take good care of the plants you do have so they get stronger and crowd out the weeds.

compost => Newspaper =>cardboard => compost => thick layer of wood chip/shredded bark mulch. It will look like a fine mulched bed until you are ready to plant.

When you are ready to plant, just dig a hole through it all and plant. No need to remove the paper or cardboard, it will eventually break down. No harm to plant right through it.

If you have persistent weeds then I would get someone to dig them out by fall and clear the plot so you can start with a fresh slate. Once the weeds are gone you can amend the soil and plant in spring. The guys who cut grass in our neighborhood are often willing to take on extra small jobs like this.

Apply Roundup to kill the weeds. Its loaded carcinogens so by next spring your weeds will be gone and so will you. You'll kill two birds with one stone and you'll never have to worry about those damn weeds ever again. PROBLEM SOLVED!

The general rule for perennials is that things that bloom in the spring are best planted in fall, while those that bloom in summer are best planted in summer. A good example of plants that do best with fall planting are peonies. But many plant them in spring and they do fine.

It would be harder to locate summer blooming perennials in the fall to try planting them then. I actually have no experience of doing this so I am not sure what would happen if one tried fall planting of summer bloomers. In spring, the nurseries seem full of both spring and summer blooming perennials, so from that perspective it makes a lot of sense to prepare your beds now and wait for spring.

I've not tried the newspaper/cardboard thing, but even if you found in the spring that there were still pieces of paper that had not broken down, you could simply discard them as you find them.

Someone (me) who has the farthest thing from a green thumb needs some advice. I bought a house last fall that has a few flower beds that were completely overrun with weeds. Earlier this spring, I spent the better part of a weekend pulling all the weeds out. It was a complete waste of time as they repeatedly come back. Now I just cut them short so the place doesn't look like a jungle.

I've learned that you can use newspaper or cardboard under mulch to suffocate the weeds. I plan on doing that before the end of the summer to get a fresh start with the beds. However, I'm not sure what I want to put in the flower beds just yet.

What's the best plan:

1. Lay down the weed covering and mulch and just have empty flower beds until next spring after I have time to figure out what I want to plant? Will that be enough time to have fresh soil/dirt to plant? Will I still have cardboard/newspaper remnants?

2. Plant something now and lay down the weed covering? Does that make sense with summer coming to an end and fall and winter around the corner? Will anything I plant now survive?

3. Do nothing until spring (other than cutting the weeds) and then plant and handle the weeds at that time?

Any advice is appreciated.