My flower beds stay pretty clear of weeds except for wild onions -- we pull and pull those everytime we go out.

For the gravel paths, I'm going to try something new this year. When we have a few sunny, hot days, I'm going to put down black paper or plastic over the paths and let the weeds cook a bit and then try to rake them out.

Wow! Do you mulch that bed area, it doesn't look like it. My beds can get bad but not that bad and usually its easy weeding with mulch.

Here is a link that might be useful: Propagating Perennials

Depends on what time of year and the area. The back rarely gets weeded and looks worse than yours. the front normally stays at oh, I'd say a B or B-. If it was up to hubby, it'd stay at an A, 'cause he likes it neat, but when he weeds, he weeds everything, even seedlings i want, so I don't let him anymore. I go through spells w/neatness and weeding according to my mood and time allowance. I try not to let the front garden get as grown up as Alicia's, but my big winter weed is chickweed, and it does get out of hand come around mid april into may. It just grows faster than i can keep up. The closer to the house the bed is, the neater i try to keep it. So by the house it stays at a B+ or better, but further out towards the road it devolves down into a solid B-, maybe C. Later in the spring just as winter weeds get big and fall as summer weeds do the same are the worst times. Backyard--mmmm, might barely pass at times with a D. Right now, save for one bed everything looks moderately ok. We don't have stilt grass in front yet, so that is one thing i stay on top of and pull every single scrap i see. The backyard's infested and hopeless. We just mow it down a few x a summer. We do have wild onions in the yards and beds, and i pull, but it seems to be an ever present battle.

Bullthistle yes I mulch, with horse manure. I have a big garden and if I kept everything as neat as a pin I'd hate gardening for sure.

Tammy I hate stiltgrass more than anything. It's ugly and nothing will shade it out, unlike Bermuda.

Oh, THANK YOU, Alicia, for posting this! It makes me feel better, since some of my beds would get a definite C- right now. I can hardly keep up with the weeding since I did not mulch & cover over the winter. Nearly gave up with the drought and all. . .I know better for this year!
Tammy, I despise stiltgrass and have a lot of trouble with it later in the season. Right now, there are others, some henbit, and a couple I haven't identified. I spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon just weeding. . .Even though there is still much to do, it looks SO much better now. Weeding gives me "instant gratification" in the garden. LOL At least I can see what I've accomplished. . .
And who needs a gym when you can work out in the garden? :)

Right about now, I'd give myself a big fat F. I have some weed that pops when you touch it and spreads seeds everywhere. It has taken over my entire garden. As I'm sure I've said many times before, I just don't "do" cold weather. And anything below 55 and sunny (has to be sunny if it's only 55) might as well be freezing to me. Whatever nice days we've had so far this spring, I've spent working on the barn, not weeding or any other garden cleanup. I've got a lot of work to do this month!

Dana, you sound like me! I only do 55 or warmer in the sun, up to about 75, then i want shade. And if i do go out at 55, it's with a ridiculously heavy coat, hat & gloves. I don't get out in the rain either- i don't like to get wet, since it makes me cold and i'm always cold. The only reason the gardens look as good as they do right now is i weeded when i went through on a warm sat and trimmed stuff about a month ago. We weeded and mulched with ground leaves and aged manure at the same time, so that's helped. It helps to get the whole gang pitching in with the mulching. I do like to weed a day or so after a good rain.

Your weed is one i've struggled with too. I always thought it was shepherd's purse but john said it's some brassica family member (but, i read recently shepherd's purse is, too). Either way it's annoying. I'm pretty aggressive about getting that particular one out so i have a lot less than i used to (something about those flinging seeds offends me!). I try to grab it before it puts up much in the way of blooms or the seed heads. Once it does, I grab the whole lot of the top together so it doesn't fling them as i pull. I don't bother with oxalis, henbit, chickweed or sorrel nearly as much, or i weed them in spurts, rather than keeping an eye peeled whenever i walk past like i do for the flingy one and stilt grass. If i could figure out a way to get rid of the stiltgrass in the back i would. As i begin to do beds back there i hope to mulch heavily and try to gradually pare back its territory. It's a monumental task.

Rosebush- you're right- when i go on one of my tears it really does feel like a lot got accomplished! Alicia, your philosophy is why i don't get myself worked up about the weeds, esp in the back, even though it'd be nice if it were neater. If it's no fun anymore, why bother?

Thanks to everyone to has replied. I was hoping this thread could be a support group to those who just can't or don't wanna get to everything. ;) If we get adequate rainfall everything in the bed I first showed will be ten feet high anyway, lol, or at least it'll seem that way.

In my defense, the beds next to the house are not covered in henbit. The yard is really starting to look like it needs to be mowed though!

{{gwi:567361}}

I'd give myself a C for the first part of the year and a D- for the second half of summer.

I can enjoy weeding while the weather is nice and cool but once it gets hot and steamy I spend less time weeding and more time harvesting veggies.

When I first moved here I had to weed a LOT because poison ivy would sprout out of the turf every 2 feet or so! and honeysuckle,, and , there was no way to keep them under control except to get down on hands and knees and pull it every night (my yard is mosly woods and just over an acre).

I know plenty of gardening people that come over are shocked at how weedy most of the yard is. I only have so much time to weed so it doesn't get done that often. I try to keep the weeds trimmed to give the appearance of ornamental plants - fools some of the people but not all.

For the large bush/shrub beds in the back and for the berry patch and veggie garden I use large sheets of either landscape fabric or black plastic covered with a thin skin of mulch (no more than one inch thick! otherwise it breaks down and holds enough moisture for weed seeds to sprout). It is surprising how much water seeps through sheets of plastic when you cut planting holes in it every couple of feet. Last summer with the drought I rarely watered the garden, the plastic kept things damp.

Weeds still show up even with these barriers but they are easy to keep under control without taking up all of your spare time.

Weeding is why so many people with large parcels of land prefer to mow a lawn rather than keep flowerbeds nice and neat. It is far easier to keep up with things on a riding mower than down on all fours grunting and pulling.

I have a lot of land and I only want to mow the horse pastures. We have a patch of land up above the house where I'm thinking of putting a wildflower garden in or something of the sort. I'd like just to use a reel mower for the lawn (we did this before the horse was born), weedwack the ditches once a year to keep down the woody stuff and then allow the Bidens and other wildflowers to come up, and mow the horse pastures as needed. We also have 4 or 5 acres in the floodway that we mow once a year to the trees down.

hollyclyff, your weed is probably Cardamine hirsuta.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cardamine hirsuta

Alicia, thanks!! Now I don't feel so bad with the state of my gardens, or lack there of! :-) I see everyone else struggles just as I do on occasion. As a rule, I would give myself a B to C depending on the weather. The hotter it gets, the less I weed. This year, I'm giving myself about a D because I don't have that much started yet. However I did actually get my first bed in yesterday!! Got to finish the border and landscape fabric and mulch this week but I got off my behind and got it well underway!! Hand tilled beds and a hand dug sidewalk isn't a easy way. The tiller needs to go to the shop :-( I even got two roses in that I had ordered!!

Of all the weeds...I like purple dead-nettle :) Quite pretty!

Alicia, I'm taking this class Pass/Fail. I get a Pass on stilt grass because I'm most passionate about it, but fail pretty much everywhere else. This year I'm going for a Pass in the side border, though, where the lovely Corydalis incisa has finally gone too far. It's given a whole new dimension to the phrase 'joyfully self-seeds'.

Purple dead-nettle is what I've got, not henbit, although both are in the mint family. I agree jqpublic, I think it's rather pretty too.

Esh ga, that's got to be the one, Cardamine hirsuta. Those exploding seeds really make a mockery out of attempting to weed. I looked up the common name and saw that one of its common names is shot weed.

Esh ga - that's it. Thanks for the ID. Now my nemesis has a name. It's an evil weed.

Wow! And I thought I had a lot of henbit this spring! Yours almost looks intentional - and kinda pretty.

I'm one of those people who actually likes weeding. It requires little thought and makes an immediate and visible improvement. Once I get started I sort of zone out and it is almost like meditation.

Don't forget the old rhyme: "One year's seeding equals seven years of weeding". Pull as many weeds as you can BEFORE they go to seed. Especially the annual winter weeds like Cardamine - learn to recognize their rosettes before they go to seed.

I encourage folks to pop off dandelion flowers and stuff them in their pockets when they don't have time to dig out the weed properly. And you have to take the flower head WITH you because it can go to seed even if you fling it on the ground (amazing, isn't it?). That keeps more weeds from forming (and yes, a lot of dead flowers end up in the washing machine!!).

I primarily hand pull my weeds - I only have a little lawn and the rest of it is mulched beds. I do have a horrible infestation of wild onion/garlic, however. I have to get out the digging tool for that and do it when it is moist. I haven't worked hard on it before, but I think I'll try to do better this year.

And unfortunately, as good as I may be about MY weeds, my neighbors do nothing and so their seeds are always coming over.

esh, double thanks for the ID. Shot-weed sure is appropriate!

karen- a corydalis that reseeds happily? Cool. It's pretty! Does it like shade? One man's weed, another's treasure... I actually like violets, too. Not everywhere, but in certain spots, like our ditch, i love them. Another couple that're kind of pretty when they bloom are chinese houses (another mint family that looks a lot like the dead nettle) and creeping charlie. We let that take over in back- it's green, only needs mowed a few x a summer, doesn't climb and covers well. The bees love it!

Karen I missed your post. I think pass/fail is a little harsh, lol. I'm envious that your Corydalis incisa self-seeds. I had a blue Corydalis from PD that was a great bloomer but I'm not sure it survived the drought.

Lindakimy it is almost intentional, lol.

Esh ga, I think I've got seventy year's worth of weeding already.

See, that's why the cardamine is such a problem for me, because it flowers when it's cold out! By the time I can get my cold-natured self out to do garden chores, it's already gone to seed.

Don't feel bad Dana, my "lawn" has huge patches of those seed heads right now not to mention what is still in the beds that hasn't been weeded out yet. It's an easy weed to pull but it is too cold to get out before they go to seed. The tunneling critters keep my back yard so torn up that it's prime real estate for weed seeds.

And I would give myself at best an E for weeding. I stay so worried about the bermuda that the other weeds get ignored more than they should and I still lose the bermuda battle in some areas.

I give myself a B+, but only because my husband is a big help, not so much at weeding, cause he hates that, but he is BIG on mulch. He also walks the borders of each bed and makes sure the bermuda is not creeping in every month.

Over time I've become a big believer in "pull them while they are small" and "mulch, mulch and more mulch".

The only thing that doesn't seem to work on are the wild onions.

I've found cardboard under mulch to be extremely helpful in smothering out weeds in difficult areas. In spring I ususally put down compost, if I'm having severe weed issues, I put down carboard, then I mulch. I always use cardboard in a new bed.

I've got some henbit too. It's pretty even if it is a naturalized weed.

{{gwi:567362}}

I have all the above culprits and more. I've been avoiding answering this thread out of shame, but I feel a little better after reading everyone else's responses. I'm also a fair weather gardener. Plus I can usually find something better to do. I don't like weeding (it's too much like cleaning) but sometimes when I'm in the mood I can get into it. Mulch helps a lot, but it's not easy when you have tons of little plants to work around. I give myself a D, except like Karen where the stilt grass is concerned because it's war!!! That I give an A- because I've almost eradicated it. Though the war will never end since the seeds can blow back in. Of course, as soon as you get rid of one enemy, another comes to take it's place. I am also constantly at war with creeping charlie and honeysuckle. They just keep coming back! That's what I'll be working on this afternoon...(if I can ignore those library books I just picked up). -Ais.

Cardamine is followed by yellow oxalis in my yard - another seed shooter that I am trying to reach a stand off with. Last year some seeds I bought came infected with dodder. That is really strange stuff that looks like orange silly string. I hope I get an A on the dodder for vigilance last year and will know if it doesn't show up this year.

In the spring weeding can be satisfying because the clay is soft and lets the roots slide out from a tug at the base, and the weeds haven't spread as rampantly as they do if I don't get enough of them now. Weeding in July is a real chore.

ooooh- i forgot about dodder. You have to get every scrap of that stuff to stop it. I battled that a few years back. Kind of cool looking in an alien vomit/silly string sort of way when it's not on your prized plants.

The oxalis is so ubiquitous for me that i half heartedly pull it when i'm weeding an area, but don't fuss much otherwise. My kids like to eat it- we called it sourgrass growing up.

Ais, I'm sure glad i'm not the only fair weather gardener and someone who'll pick a book over weeding most any day! I feel so lazy sometimes, esp compared to some of you. :) I'm becoming more & more of a believer in mulch, though like you said, it's a real pain to get it in & around tight plantings. Work to avoid more work- that's a good tradeoff. My only gripe with it is i don't get my reseeding annuals that way. Just means i have to make an effort to collect seed.

I think its pretty. ;) Maryt

My yard is being taken over by chickweed. I've done okay as far as keeping it out of my beds and borders to some extent, but that is not helped by the chickweed forest growing on my neighbor's side of the fence behind my hydrangea bed/border. Got up at 6:30 this AM and pulled some more of it before work...

I would have to give myself a D for my lawn, I think it is more weeds than grass. My current plan is to mow it and pretend it doesn't exist.

I did a massive weeding session this past Sunday and hated it. Mulch does help but sometimes it doesn't. If the weeds really want the area it doesn't matter how thickly you mulch, they will find a way.

I also don't buy that line of "weeds only like poor soil"...that's BS too...some of the best soil I have (teeming and teeming with earthworms) is FULL of weeds.

The only weed I have truly declared war on is the dreaded Dollar Weed. I picked it up from an aunt that lived in Myrtle Beach (where it is rampant) when she moved to Lake Wateree and then gave me some of her transplanted plants. I have JUST about got it eradicated (through a "scorched earth" method) but I still see little shoots pop up here and there. I have to remain vigilant because this stuff is really really bad stuff.

Funny, because on my lunchtime jog today I passed a house that had dollar weed planted in clay pots out by the road as some kind of weird annual.