Maybe you have different grass than I do but what usually works for me is covering it with wet newspaper and then mulch on top of that.

I have some problems with grass in the garden, Holly. Are you sure it is lawn grass causing you the trouble?

Lawn grass "follows" me into the garden from the lawn and diminishes as I get farther in. It seems reasonable that I am carrying the seeds of the dwarf Kentucky Blue Grass in on my shoes! You may notice, KBG lawn grass blooms even tho' it is mowed. I can only assume that it goes to seed also because of the way it shows up in the garden.

Quack grass is only a small problem in the annual garden because I have weeded it out. It creeps in a little from the lawn where it has a foothold in some places. In the perennials, quack grass can be a more serious issue. It reproduces by rhizomes and that requires the weeder to remove every piece or this perennial grass grows back.

Crab grass shows up fairly late in the season. Crab grass is an annual and how the seeds get in, I have no idea. It seems that no matter how conscientious I am about pulling the plants before they can go to seed -- some show up the next year.

Mulch will kill the KBG seedlings easily enuf because they are just tiny plants. But, mulch on the paths between perennials with quack grass doesn't help much. The quack grass will "crawl" under the grass. I do, however, use Round-up in the paths between the ornamentals. Round-up isn't used in my veggie garden.

I guess I didn't answer your questions but just added another one: what grass are you having trouble with?

Steve

gjcore: "Maybe you have different grass than I do but what usually works for me is covering it with wet newspaper and then mulch on top of that." Hmmm, I haven't tried that; I think I will give it a try.

digit - it is definitely lawn grass that I am whining about! Good old Kentucky Blue grass. There are some other annual grasses that are annoying but it is rhizomous blue grass that is driving me to the use of poisons! OK, I'll try gjcore's method first, but the poison is waiting in the wings!

Holly

What are you trying to keep it out of, Holly? Flower beds, or veggie garden, or something else?

Skybird

Skybird - I am trying to keep it out of/remove it from my beds - flower beds, dwarf conifer beds, etc. As I first stated, I have tried using edging to keep the grass out but I obviously am using the wrong kind - maybe I need to use some sort of barrier like they use for bamboo... lol

Apparently not many people have this problem, but for some reason my Kentucky Blue grass is particularly thuggish and likes to creep along and take over everything. I guess I need to be more aggressive with it, too. As much as I hate to resort to some sort of herbicide, I may have to.

Has anyone here used a grass-specific herbicide with good results? (As in, should I believe the labels that say it won't cause harm to ornamental plants that are growing next to the offending grass?)

Holly

Holly, I know exactly what you're talking about and I have the same problem. Every spring when the soil is moist (not wet), I go around the entire lawn edge and dig/pull all of the grass that's growing outside of the edging. I was told that if I made a "ditch" on the outside of the edging and filled it with bark mulch, the problem would decrease. This hasn't been the case and wasn't worth the time or effort.

I have an entire area of sedum near the grass line that I need to dig out and replant. It's filled with grass and it's impossible to pull it anymore. When I replant I'll put it further back so that I have time to get the grass before it gets into the ground cover.

No real solution for you; but if misery loves company I hear ya!

Connie

Connie - it is indeed good to hear that I am not the only one dealing with this. It is indeed impossible to pull out the grass from sedum without pulling up the sedum as well; my oak-leaf sedum was entirely taken over by grass. And just try to remove it from a bed of Iris....

I have spent a lot of time trying to rid my beds of grass and nothing seems to work. It's more out of frustration than laziness that makes me think that poison might be the answer!

Holly

Well, I'm gonna recommend you try the method that hasn't worked for Connie! LOL!

I have that problem with KBG too, and it's hard for me to imagine that it isn't a problem, to some extent, with everybody! When I bought this house, the lawn was edged with commercial grade, steel edging, with the "non-grass" areas covered with landscape fabric, which was covered with ROCK--both of which I hate! The front yard, which I mostly ignore, still has the fabric and rock, and definitely has a problem with the grass spreading past the edging--mostly because I ignore it and rarely sit down to try to clean it up! (So much for edging and landscape fabric and mulch keeping out grass--and weeds!)

In the backyard, where I garden, and LIVE, it's in much better shape! With railroad ties on the sunny side, there's no problem, obviously, and on the other side with the steel edging, as soon as I see a "sprig" of grass show up on the wrong side of the edging, I take the time to dig/pull it. You MUST get all of the root or it just keeps on going and going and going! So the steel edging in the backyard has worked fairly well for me.

BUT--since I moved in, the grass has been slowly "disappearing" on the other two sides of the yard, where I now have perennials and veggies! The first couple years that was a big problem, but I didn't really want any more steel edging! Sometime really early on, after I found GW, before I found RMG I think, I read about somebody using the "ditch" method of edging. Wasn't even sure what they meant, but remembered it anyway, and decided to try it---without even being sure I knew what I was supposed to do!

I went down the one side of the yard, cutting thru the sod like I'd do if I were digging more sod out (which, in fact, I was also doing along with my "ditching" project--increasing the width of the perennial space!). I used the long, narrow type of spade (rather than a regular shovel) because it has much less of a "curve" than a regular shovel, so I got a straighter line. I didn't use one of those little curved edging shovel thingies---'cause I didn't have one, AND I wanted to dig much deeper than they do anyway! I was digging down in close to a foot, then "wiggling" the shovel forward and backward to "loosen up" the soil, then pulling the shovel back out and sticking it back in overlapping with the previous place. I did that for 7 or 8' at a time, and then I'd sit down with my Little Digger (trowel) and dig/pull out a little chunk of sod, knock any good soil off of it, and throw the rest in a big pot to go on the compost pile or in the trash--depending on how bad the clay was! I wasn't digging out anywhere near a foot down (maybe 5-6"), but by loosening it up that far down, it was much easier to get the "top" out. When digging it out, I made sure--as much as I could--that I got all the rhizomes out that were going the wrong way--past where my new "ditch" was gonna be! I had watered--as in really saturated--the whole area a day or two before, so I wasn't working in mud, but it was very moist where I was working. If the soil is too dry, you can't even hope to pull the rhizomes out! If it's moist enough, you can "follow" the rhizome to the end, sometimes loosening the soil with the tip of your scissors or something, to be sure it doesn't break off!

Did I mention that this is a lot of work? Did I mention that I really enjoy sitting out in the yard on a nice day or evening, "doing things!" And did I mention that I really, really, really, enjoy going back out there after I've finished something to gaze upon my accomplishment!!!

After pulling out the sod, shaking off some of the soil, and removing the "bad" rhizomes, I left a "ditch" roughly 4" deep from the level of the sod. Then I sloped it gently back up from the bottom of the ditch to the "garden bed" part, and put a THIN layer of bark mulch down the slope to the bottom of the ditch! This leaves the "edge" of the ditch exposed so it dries out, making it much harder for the grass rhizomes to keep spreading! (I think you may have had more of a problem, Connie, because you kept the whole ditch filled with mulch, keeping the "cliff edge" of the soil wet enough for the rhizomes to keep spreading, either right thru the mulch, or more deeply in the soil.)

The first year will be a bear!!! Right after you do it, you'll find the totally weirded out rhizomes trying to go every which way! You just really messed with Their World! Probably after only a month or so, you'll need to go all along the edge and pull off the rhizomes that are desperately looking for some way to grow--up, out, or down far enough to reach the soil again! Water well the day before, and it's not that much of a problem--and another nice sit in the yard! When you pull them out at this point, it's probably gonna look like your pulling out "chunks" of the grass that you still want, but, take my word for it, that'll fill back in FAST! You'll also have a problem with the rhizomes that were growing deeper than the bottom of your ditch--left over from when they could grow that deeply because they were "protected" by the soil that used to be on top of them! Again, you need to have wet/moist soil, and you just follow them "back," from the point where you see a blade of grass coming up, to the grass on the lawn side of the ditch. After the first year, the "deep" rhizome problem will get less and less. I still have a couple places where I have a problem, but that's mostly places where my ditch isn't deep enough, and next time I go around and "re-edge" it, I'm gonna make it a little deeper everywhere than it is now, now that I know it's working for me!

For maintenance, I try to go down each side of the yard about once a year, to "re-edge" it, and to kinda put the ditch back in, since it tends to "fill up" little by little when I'm working out there, and with watering! During the summer, I do with the "ditched" parts what I do with the steel edging--if I see blades of grass coming up in the beds, the next time it's watered well, I take a few minutes to carefully dig in (tip of scissors again--one of my primary garden tools!) and remove the rhizomes.

I admit, I really wasn't expecting it to work in the beginning--and that initial blast of rhizomes coming up seemingly everywhere, had me doubting even more, but I kept it up and it's gotten easier and easier, and I like the look of it much more than any of the edgings I'm familiar with! I recommend a minimum of 4" deep for the ditch (and I think I'm gonna start to go for about 5") and then cover it with just enough mulch to conserve moisture and to get the appearance you want, making sure the edge of the "cliff" can dry to discourage the rhizomes from going that direction! One problem I do have is that when I cut the grass I need to be careful or I "vacuum up" all of the bark mulch in the ditch!

There is NO way to get established rhizomes out of things like sedum or iceplant, or iris, or daylilies, without digging and replanting the plants! And when you do that, you need to be sure you get even the tiniest rhizomes out of the soil before replanting them! With sedum, it may be easiest to just take cuttings and start new plants and then dig and dispose of the old ones. With things like iris, you can pretty easily dig and "wash" the soil off of the roots before replanting, but not till after they're done blooming this year or you'll really mess with them!

I've never tried a grass killer that doesn't kill broadleaf plants, but if anyone has, I'd love do know how successful it was--just for future reference since I don't really have anywhere that I need it now. In the front yard I've gone around a couple times in the past with Roundup and sprayed the grass coming up in the fabric/rocks, and I didn't worry a lot if I got a little bit of the "good" grass! It comes back!!! I do have a patch of "weed grass" in my front lawn, but I've never even figured out what it is! I've been quite unsuccessful at getting rid of it, but so far the best "treatment" I've found for that is to keep the lawn well watered, which seems to encourage the KBG and "squeeze out" the weed stuff. Problem is that I use my best "drought watering techniques!" I water infrequently and very deeply, so the surface dries considerably in between, which seems to make the weed stuff happy. Last year I tried to keep that one spot watered more often, and I think it was starting to help. Gonna to go with that plan again this year!

Any chances you'll be coming to the swap this year, Holly? You could see my "ditches" if you did!

Let me know if you have any ditch questions,
Skybird

P.S. Connie, I just noticed you said that you have/had your ditch next to edging. I don't have any edging at all where I have the ditches!

All I can say is me too.

Wow, Skybird, thank you so much for that very thorough explanation. I think I will have to take back my statement that my pondering the use of poison wasn't because I was lazy... :-( The ditch method seems like a lot of work and I don't know if I have the strength or the time! Maybe you can come to my house and show me how it's done....that worked for Tom Sawyer, right?? lol

Unfortunately, I probably won't be able to make it to the swap - I work on the weekends.

Come on, someone tell me that it is OK to use an herbicide - Round-Up is out - too much "good stuff" growing where the grass is determined to be.

Sigh. I will probably try the ditch method around one of my smaller beds to see how it goes and to see if I have the stamina to outlast the grass!

Holly

LOL! Sorry, Holly! No whitewash here!

I was going to suggest you try it in a small area to see how it works for you, but I forgot to put it in! The really hard work is when you do it the very first time, and then for the first summer season. It really isn't that bad after that, and I've found that the "upkeep" takes less time than I was spending trying to keep the grass out of the plants those first couple years before I did it.

If there's some way to solve my "problems" without chemicals, I do that, but I don't have a problem using chemicals when I need to. I use Weed-B-Gon in my grass to get rid of cottonwood and aspen suckers---I have not found any other effective control for those nuisances---and I am not about to wind up in the middle of a Poplar forest!! I also use it in my perennial beds to fight the thistles and bindweed that keeps trying to get in from my neighbor's yards! But I've never used Grass-B-Gon, and somehow I think I'd have a hard time making the leap that it would be ok to spray any kind of an herbicide on my "good" plants without hurting them! I suspect I'd either have nightmares for a week, or else I'd be out in my yard every hour with a flashlite checking to be sure my plants hadn't died yet! ;-)

If you decide to use it, I recommend trying it on a small area first to see what happens. I tried to research it a little bit, but didn't find a whole lot! The label (which you can go to on the Scotts site) says: Temporary discoloration of the foliage may occur occasionally on some of the listed plants if contacted by spray!

What? Aren't we to assume that the spray is going to "contact" the plants? If it WASN'T going to contact the plants, you could just use Roundup! It also doesn't say anything at all about sedums or other succulents, so a small test section really seems like a good idea. It also doesn't say anything about iris or other monocots, but I found places where people say they've successfully used it around iris---but I also found a site that said the registration had been cancelled, so, since it's available again, apparently the formula has been changed, so there's no way to know which formula people were posting about! Yeah, like I said, it would make me really nervous to be intentionally spraying my perennials with anything that's supposed to KILL!

If you decide to test it/use it, please do let us know how well it works.

Sorry you can't make it to the swap! Possibly the Fall Swap if the days you work changes!

Skybird

Here is a link that might be useful: Scotts/Ortho Grass-B-Gon

I was told that if I made a "ditch" on the outside of the edging and filled it with bark mulch, the problem would decrease. This hasn't been the case

That is because that technique is incorrect. You dig a ditch and leave it open - the French border. Grass roots/tillers/rhizomes do not grow into air, but they'll grow into bark mulch.

Nonetheless, you can spray with RoundUp and stay on top of the grass sprouts if you don't want to take steps to exclude the lawn. Just spray judiciously and ensure no overspray gets on plants. Then once a week walk around and pull.

And be thankful you don't live in a warm climate where Bermudagrass is the turf of choice.

Dan

I do the Roundup thing - set the sprayer with low pressure, hold it close to the ground on a calm day, and walk the perimeter around the flower beds.

Then I mulch the heck out of them.

That keeps it, generally, under control.

I actually bought some Grass-B-Gon last year but have been so reluctant to use it that it has just been sitting on a shelf since purchased. I am also concerned about using it because of my dogs; like all dogs, they do like/need to eat grass. If I decide to use it, I may just use it in my front yard since the dogs only frequent the fenced back yard.

Bermuda grass is a horrible thing! It spreads via stolons on top of the soil and via rhizomes under the soil - nasty stuff indeed. Another of those non-native plants - like Kentucky blue grass, kudzu and bindweed - introduced in North America that have become invasive and really have little to no redeeming qualities. (I remember admiring all the pretty pink and white flowers that so many people seemed to have growing throughout their lawns and gardens until I started gardening myself and discovered what a horror bindweed actually was!)

Anyway, I will continue to dig out the grass as well as trying the wet newspaper and mulch method and the ditch method of control to see if anything works for me. The herbicide will remain on the shelf for now.

Holly