About little plants growing right up to the base of my roses, I wouldn't worry about bugleweed's competing with roses for water. My roses are deep rooted, possibly because of minimal watering and deep soil, and even violets don't cause them any problems, and I would guess that violets are a lot more invasive than bugleweed. But I have been wondering about whether herbaceous plants in contact with the canes aren't promoting the cankers that so plague many of my roses. I've become more diligent about keeping the bases of the roses clean since this occurred to me.

Greetings, I am far from expert compared to the others here who will no doubt wade in soon enough to provide some advice but just a couple of thoughts that came to mind... 1. Geraniums might work on the northern side. They generally require very little pruning and can neatly occupy about a 1m tall x 1.5m width. Constantly flowering you might not have much of a perfume (unless you crush the leaves as you pass them) but you'd have some visual beauty. 2. Given you're obviously not able to bend or stand, could you buy standard roses at the appropriate height which would allow you to do most of the maintenance and then your husband could get involved once per year as required? I'm thinking of the small neat "balls on a stick" effect that it's possible to get through semi-regular pruning. If you bought them at the appropriate height for your wheelchair (easy to judge when you go shopping for them) then you should be able to do 99% of the the maintenance whilst seated? The final height of the plant would be determined already so you'd not need to be concerned they'd be the wrong size ultimately. 3. You might consider eliminating the fishbone fern (hey, you said your husband would help sometimes!) and laying down some serious weed-barrier (even thick newspapers would work) covered by gravel / white stones / woodchips that requires no ongoing maintenance. Your pots could then sit on this area and you'd have them as a feature without the weed problem. Hope that helps...

I had quite a bit of it in my garden bed, there was so much of it that is was impossible to dig it out. There were plants around the onion weed so I carefully sprayed the foliage of the onion weed with round up. The plants around the are still good, the onion weed is stone dead. Digging it out works but the seeds attached to the bulb of the plant means you'll be doing this exercise for years to come. I'm a terrible gardener, but I'm a Round Up fan. Mark

I have tried cardboard under several inches of mulch, but the problem is that it will usually only last for the season and by next year you will have to do it all over again (cardboard is better than newspapers though). Maybe for a person in arizona or california, it would be more effective, but with the rain in NY it's not so useful. To echo what everyone else has said, never use landscape fabric. It is the absolute worst, doesn't work and you will be finding pieces of it for years.. Now, I just use my weed wacker and this little tool with 3 claws on it to just rip the weeds out. It's uncomplicated and does give me a slight feeling of satisfaction. I've also found that white vinegar can be pretty good for sidewalk and patio weeds:)