Anonymous
Post 04/11/2024 12:37     Subject: Flower bed taken over by weeds! Please advise
Anonymous wrote:You don’t have to treat or resoil. You just need to weed. If you want to do this the hard and fast way, take a digging fork (looks like a pitch fork with thick tines) and methodically loosen all the soil, levering all of the plants out, weeds and wanted plants. Toss the weeds and keep all the perennials to the side. When you have weeded the entire bed replant the perennials, water it, and then mulch it. The mulch will keep down weeds, but you will still have to weed it.

If you don’t want to take the perennials out, weed with a hand fork instead of a digging fork and target the weeds. Then mulch.

Every inch of soil needs to be covered by something or there will be weeds. Ideally then soil will be covered with plants you want, but you can use mulch while the plants fill in. One thing you can do is declare some aggressive low-growing plant that loves your garden a ground cover and let it go nuts. For me that is violets, yarrow, and evening primrose. All are native, easy, pretty, and aggressive enough to serve as a living mulch.


I have violets and love the way they look but want to plant some other things of varying heights and bloom times. Can you explain how you work the living mulch? How much space among the violets and yarrow do you need to clear to plant something new? How do the new plants not get out competed?
Anonymous
Post 04/11/2024 12:35     Subject: Re:Flower bed taken over by weeds! Please advise
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
NP- does cardboard work better than the black fabric cover they sell at Home Depot, or is it just more economical?

Anonymous wrote:1. Agree with making a weeding day, on hands and knees, with a book or podcast.

2. Plant or replant, making note of where bulbs are placed

3. Cover with card board, overlapping so there are only gaps where you are expected a flower

4. Cover card board with mulch.

Update annually as needed.


Landscaping fabric is useless. Over time, it just breaks down, and then you end up with thousands of small pieces of plastic in your soil to deal with. Cardboard will breakdown and become part of the soil. At least you won't have a mess on your hands.


Yes! I wish someone had told me that a couple years ago. I thought I was going something better for the environment than herbicide but I just made a different kind of mess.
Anonymous
Post 04/11/2024 10:14     Subject: Flower bed taken over by weeds! Please advise
Second the cardboard or newspaper layer over pulled or at least trimmed to the ground weeds. It'll last a year or so and let you get control of the bed.
I'm walking the yard and weeding daily now so the weeds don't seed and get out of control. It really helps. In the summer I barely have to weed and definitely fewer weeds in the spring.
Anonymous
Post 04/11/2024 07:26     Subject: Flower bed taken over by weeds! Please advise
I tried cardboard last year. It worked great for about 3/4s of weed season. Then the same weeds just grew on top. however i recently went and was able to pull those weeds out much easier (I guess shallow roots) and replaced the cardboard/mulch. There were only a few pieces of last years cardboard to be found (had the amazon blue tape on it, lol).
Anonymous
Post 04/10/2024 21:30     Subject: Re:Flower bed taken over by weeds! Please advise
Anonymous wrote:
NP- does cardboard work better than the black fabric cover they sell at Home Depot, or is it just more economical?

Anonymous wrote:1. Agree with making a weeding day, on hands and knees, with a book or podcast.

2. Plant or replant, making note of where bulbs are placed

3. Cover with card board, overlapping so there are only gaps where you are expected a flower

4. Cover card board with mulch.

Update annually as needed.


Landscaping fabric is useless. Over time, it just breaks down, and then you end up with thousands of small pieces of plastic in your soil to deal with. Cardboard will breakdown and become part of the soil. At least you won't have a mess on your hands.
Anonymous
Post 04/10/2024 21:22     Subject: Flower bed taken over by weeds! Please advise
I’ve given up on weeds. My yard is too large for me to be out there trying to hand pick them. Now I just tell my lawn guy to take care of them once or twice during the summer, and to pull by hand without chemicals. That’s good enough for me.

What I really want is a nice no-maintenance hardscape with very little vegetation, but I won’t be able to get that at my current home. Maybe the next one.