When you have aggressive weeds with deep tap roots like dandelion and dock, you need to mow a couple of times, remove the deep tap root weeds by hand, perhaps spray with an organic herbicide like Burnout(acetic acid), THEN put down your cardborad. Also, the layers need to be deep enough and the materials dense enough to block much of the light.

This technique works better when garden soil is being prepared on a base of lawn grass rather than a thin weed barrier of wet cardboard and organic mulch being prepared over a base of aggressive weeds.

well it won't be fun or easy but i think your right. the only way to really get em is start over. this is a big area we're talkin'! should take like 2 weeks, but in the end it will be done rite!! its weird though i think its cause its on a hillside cause everywhere else i did it is flat, and there are absolutely no weeds on the flat parts!!

Use Roundup - the weeds will absorb it to the roots.

Well if it's been a year, I'd say that wasn't bad.

I wouldn't resort to weed killers, just keep laying down cardboard or newspapers and mulching on top. It is an 'on going' way of doing things, but the weeds will be less and less each year.

Unless you really want to do some hard work don't.

Pura Vida

Here is a link that might be useful: garden blog

Roundup...it's great. put cardboard or cloth over the plants you want to keep. The sprayed weeds will die down to their roots...then you can continue with bark mulch and shortly you'll have nearly a weedfree flowerbed. Roundup works and when used according to direction (simple to do) it really reduces the work of weeding enormous flowerbeds.

I agree about Roundup but cover anything you want to keep, then just leave the weeds, rake back the mulch put more cardboard, newspaper, plastic whatever you are using, I covered an area with left over shingles in the fall we'll see in the spring what comes thru them and recover with mulch
good luck
I HATE WEEDS

hmmm, my weeds two years ago thought the roundup was fertilizer :D

onward with the battle of the weeds!!!

sally
ps..it really WAS roundup I used too!!!

Just pull them out now, while they're still young & tender.

They'll be easier to pull out of the cardboard mix than out of the previous unimproved soil.

Just keep at it diligently.

Weeds are persistent no matter what, but as the soil improves, it does get easier to remove them.

I know this might not be an option...but it worked in some areas of our yard. My wife and I bought an 150 year old house that had been neglected for at least a decade. While we've been doing the renovation indoors, we have spent some time and money on our yard so that we are not looking at a construction zone when we finally finish up the house. Anyway...after tearing off an old aluminum roof from the house, and one from a shed we took down, I layed some of the metal sheets along the front edges of flower beds, as well as in empty spaces. After covering them with a thin layer of mulch, you don't see them...and no weeds! If you get a pair of tin snips, the sheets can be cut easily to any shape (wear gloves- I like the ones sold with fireplace accessories because they are thick and come up the the elbows). And, if you grade the ground a bit underneath them, the water will be directed in a desired direction (in our case- into some of our birch trees). If you don't have access to a few dozen sheets of aluminum roofing, you can buy the cheap corrugated stuff for next to nothing. Or you could ask around in rural areas. Most old houses like ours have piles of it around the property (for some reason, country folk in Virginia never threw away ANYTHING!).
Just an idea!
Cheers and Fairwinds,
Brett Silver

Use layers of newspapers instead of cardboard for really tough weeds. The newspapers make a more solid layer against the sunlight, but your newly planted flowers can still grown through from above. Also be sure to cover with a thick layer of mulch, at least 4-6 inches on top of the newspaper.

I would rather put down an extra layer of newpapers than pour poison into my soil and essentially, my food and water supply.

-Kyle

have you considered that by adding "grass clippings" your actually adding weed seeds?

That was my thought too about the grass clippings adding weed seed. As with weed blocker, a plant will grow down through wet cardboard when it can't grow up through it. I'm thinking all that water is sure helping the weeds too.
I do the same thing with clippings though, but when I get weeds, I swirl the clippings around a bit and now the weed is on the bottom under the pile with no upward pointing shoot. You can't wait till there is 50 of them though, you have to stay on top of it.
I'm going to use that tin idea this fall over fresh manure.

When you add cardboard and grass clippings and bark,you have just started a compost pile of sort.Once it deteriorates you have supplied a nutritious feed and probably brought in weed seeds too.

Hi everyone, I'm a new member, as of today. I also want to clean up an area of weeds and was wondering what would happen if I were to cover the ground with a layer of high content Nitrogen fertilizer? I mean a deep layer of the stuff. Then add the newspaper/cardboard and a 6 inch layer of mulch. I know it would kill my grass in a heart beat as I've been there, done that. What would I get, a bed full of overgrown weeds or dead ones????

You would get a toxic area you couldn't plant in for a few years, and the surrounding plants might also die.

The cardboard and mulch alone will do the trick.

I have found that roundup is NOT what it used to be. Environmentalists have taken everything that works away from us. I use roundup in the cracks of my driveway and around the edges of my mulchbed. It controls weeds for like a week!

i watched back to eden vedio about a fellow that uses cardboard wood chips and compost. on his garden, my wife and i just got through putting down the wet cardboard,with composted manure,going to put some top soil,and a layer of wood chips. the wood chips keep the weeds from growing.you just keeping using compost and wood chips. you can watch this veido on your computer. good luck

Agreed. Those driveway cracks could be spackled, or the whole thing repaved. Functional edges around your beds would eliminate the need for constantly maintaining those borders, especially in such an irresponsible way. Pulling weeds when they are small should be part of weekly garden maintenance that only takes a few minutes.

Boiling water works great for killing the weeds between the cracks. Of course really deep weeds might just be stunted by it, but weeds close to the surface die instantly. I just fill up a percolator/electric kettle with water, carrying a regular pan of water can be a little dangerous as the water can slosh and splash while you're carrying it.

Roundup is neurotoxic and associated with hive collapse in bee's.

look up monsanto and see if you still want to buy roundup from them.

I personally wouldn't eat food from a garden where roundup has been used.

Roundup is banned in most countries of the european union since january 1st 2016. For good reasons.

Has anyone ever used compost as mulch?? What results did you have?

I use almost nothing else. Homemade compost and occasionally autumn leaves. I certainly wouldn't spend money on mulch. Don't know how to describe the results. Stuff grows and that's all I require.

I just didn't know if you got a lot of blown in Weeds and blown in other plantings??

I've mentioned it to a couple of gardeners and quote on quote professionals and they just look at me like I had two heads

I wouldn't use anything like Roundup if you have children, grand kids, pets or neighbors. The chemical glyphosate used in Roundup is considered a carcinogen by the World Health Organization. The United States protects corporate interests not the people so don't count on the FDA or any other agency to keep you safe. At the end of the day people will say "Oh its totally safe" and also "it will kill us all." Personally, I would rather be safe than sorry when my family is involved. I use the barrier method..stack about 10 newspapers on top of each other, weed barrier fabric and beauty bark.

When you use Roundup, follow the directions and keep kids and pets out of the area for 24 hours. You can get hazard tape to put around the area.

As per this post, I think the mistake was adding the grass clippings, which inevitably had weed seeds mixed in.

Just don't use roundup. It's a lazy and foolish solution.

Dig up the plant or use vinegar or hot water. There's no place for something that is cancerous and neurotoxic in the garden, not to mention that funding Monsanto is a damn good way to prevent us from getting heirloom non gmo seeds and plants.

Anyone ever use tin between rows? I did this year and it works great for me. I hope to cover with mulch, but I have to go one step at a time. Where I live in the south, we get lots of rain, so water has been no issue. Even when it is a bit dry, the tin hold the moisture under it, and the minimum 12" between for planting gets plenty of water. In a dry climate you probably have to irrigate anyway, or I did in South Central Texas. Has anyone any feedback?