I just keep squeezing in more roses & plants to choke out the weeds!

I use mulch when I make a new bed. So the first season or so they are choked out by the inches of mulch. Now that my beds are thinning down on mulch, I'm seeing more weeds. I personally don't like weed cloth. Its harder to get the weeds out & I can't work in the compost, etc.

At the beginning of the season when I clean up my beds. I do a big weeding. From then on I do a lot of my weeding daily, when I walk around the garden, I pull them as I see them. It saves me doing a big chore later & I stay more on top of it.

I name my weeds and tell visitors they are exotic plants I brought with me when I moved here. :)

Seriously though, I'm a recycler and compost maker so I always have paper, shredded paper, cardboard, and leaves around. If I want to smother weeds and grass I put down cardboard (cut generously to fit around plants or trees if need be) then layer on grass clippings, mulch, shredded leaves, or whatever. If I want my bed to look nice and tidy I'll use store bought mulch, but I put layers of newspaper or cardboard down first then cover with the mulch.

Because I have a new to me house I'm making all my beds from scratch, in which case there is already cardboard down under the amendments to kill the grass to begin with. When it's time to plant I just cut a hole through the cardboard if it hasn't already broken down on it's own.

I don't. I consider weeds as a. pollinator food and b. crops for good compost. I let the weeds bloom and then pull them on after rain days when it is too wet to dig.

When someone finds an answer to the weed problem that really works they will be worth billions!!!

Lily- A thick layer of newspaper underneath mulch works pretty well. If you dampen it first it will tear easily to form it around your plants. I thinker's easier to plant first then put the paper around the plants than to try and plant through it. Most of my garden is pretty weed free now since the soil has been there a while.

Sharon

Lilyfinch we *did* end up trying a weed torch for a very challenging area of river rock that not only had weeds, but wild blackberries... which are almost impossible to remove. We thought we got them when we bulldozed, but nope.. they came back. The weed torch worked really well. By "we" I mean my husband used it. ;-) I was terrified of it. I'm not really sure it's 100% legal here to be honest.

Like others here... I have used cardboard successfully to smother grass in other areas, then mulch on top. Solarizing works great on grass too as long as you can be patient and you don't mind the temporary trashy look of black plastic. :-) If you're not sure what solarizing is, I'm sure you can google it and find a bunch of UC-extension notes about it. Solarizing my entire front lawn (maybe 1/4 acre?), then mulching gave me some great soil.... but it took time.

I handle weeds almost like Blondie does: keep adding plants to flower beds to squeeze out weeds; weed by hand early, and they start fading away from the beds; stay on top of the job. Diane

I keep planting other things so the weeds don't have room same like Blondie and Diane too .

I pull weeds by hand...For whatever reason really do not get many in the rose beds...But other areas not being used I get lots of weeds...lol...

I've struggled with weeds in the rose beds for years, then this year I have almost none. I used pine needles over leaf matter for all those years. This year I'm using pine bark nuggets (the large ones), several inch's thick, over top of last years pine needles and leaf matter. Mostly clean so far. Just a few little pieces of grass trying to grow on top of everything. I'll know for sure in a couple of months. But I must admit, I like a clean looking bed. Next year I'll probably put a couple of layers a news paper down along the outside edges of the beds before I load the beds up with mulch just to be sure.

A regularly scheduled gardener takes care of the majority of weeds.... although I will pull a stray weed here and there. Years ago, I had a neighbor who paid their teenager's allowance in part from completing chores like pulling weeds.

I weed a lot. I put down a lot of mulch. I stopped using Preen because I didn't like the idea and the smell of the chemical.

Eliminating weeds in my grass with fertilizer, water, and Iron-X spray helped eliminate weeds in my rose beds. I use pine chips to mulch and don't have any problems. Also, we cut our grass before it goes to seed AND I use plastic edging along my cedar wood border so the grass can't creep underneath.

Rebecca

Lilyfinch,

I don't pull many weeds, mostly I PUSH them! Yes, I PUSH them! I am simply obeying a basic law of physic....If an object can be pulled, it can also be pushed.

Since I mulch heavily I get few weeds. Those that pop up are usually pushed as soon as I can get to them, so they are rather small, but not always. The little ones are easy pushing. They're, "Pushovers."

I take a sturdy, 1" diameter bamboo cane, 5' or so long, and jam a pebble tightly into one end of the cane. It's pushed in maybe a quarter of an inch below the rim of the cane end, so that the edge of cane sticks out 1/4" beyond the pebble.

I walk the perimeter of my rose bed and aim the pebble end of the cane at a weed and push it into the soil until it's disabled. Most of it disappears underground. The leaves that may stick up are doomed. No bending over, no kneeling, no touching weeds, no gathering them up.....

With my method, if you don't catch the weeds when they are young you're going to have a plan B like I do.

My plan B is using 4' long handled dandelion weeder. I don't pop those bigger weeds out. I twirl the weed's base stem around the forked end, just like I twirl spaghetti noodles around my fork at the table. When the weed is twisted tightly after about three turns of handle, the roots have been pulled out by the twisting motion. The weed stays on the forked end as you tap it into your weed bucket or leave it there on top of the mulch to dry up and die. No bending over, no kneeling.....I actually enjoy twirling and pushing my weeds. I kind of look forward to weeding!

Moses

I have less real estate to cover than some of you here, so not sure I would feel the same if I had acreage rather than feet, but count me as another who enjoys weeding. I find it a relaxing way to unwind, and usually go out with my gallon weed bucket to fill after work. No more satisfying feeling than popping tap root out and all.

I started using wood chips from my chipper in the pathwas and perimeter of our garden. It worked fairly well. This year I came across a clearance sale on fireplace pressed sawdust, and it is better for supression. Whether or not I can get enough nitrogen on it to get it to digest by next year is a question, but it is easier this year.

Lots of really different ideas for different gardens !! I love to hear from everyone. I have tried cardboard here and the running grass just feeds on it and gets stronger! But it did kill most other things.

My plan here is to keep the fabric down for a year , then next year pull it up and replace with the pine nuggets. I've been using the cheap lowes black mulch when it goes on sale but it fades and deteriorates so fast it'll be useless next year . Then I can add more perennials to fill in the blanks .

I don't mind pulling the weeds either ! It's relaxing and gives me time to enjoy the roses I'm around. In fact I just had to spend an extra ten min around Beverly and mmmm she smelled so good !

Moses I have a large weed popper like you describe but i use it in the lawn for those darn super thorny dandelion mutants! Best 25 dollars spent. What an invention!!

Thanks everyone for all your responses!!

Twisting the dandelion puller - genius!!! And I love the pushing idea too!!

I gave up, and use a service.

Carol

I use weed killer for the lawn, pull weeds out in the garden. I have to buy a weed puller this weekend to save my back. I didn't know about it. Thanks to this thread!

I actually like to weed! I weed both the garden, AND the lawn near the garden so seeds don't blow in. I top off mulch 2 or 3 times during the season which really helps. I keep a supply on hand so any bare spot is immediately covered.

I've got my yard under control (without weedkillers or weed n feed) to the point where I have very, very little weeding to do. Needless to say this took awhile.

I'm lucky that there are six feet board fences between my garden and the neighbors, since they are both lazy about mowing and often leave tall weeds along the edges of their yards. I've been known to sneak out after dark and dig up crabgrass close to my yard...

I am conflicted about what to do. On the one hand, I don't like weeds. On the other hand, I have a lot of flowers that self-sow in my garden beds. Annuals that self-sow are Love in a Mist (Nigella), larkspur, and forget-me-nots (Myosotis). Foxgloves, Hesperis, Lunaria, Dicentra, Aquilegia, Phlox paniculata, Campanula persicifolia, Campanula glomerata, Geranium 'Springtime' are some of the other things that pop up all over. If I mulched more heavily, I would get fewer weeds. . . but then I would get fewer of these self-sowing flowers. So I allow a lot of things to self-sow, and then painstakingly pull out the don't-wants for the compost piles. I feel like I should mulch heavily and give up on all these self-sowers, but . . . haven't done it yet. [I weed with Bose noise-cancelling headphones and Spotify radio stations built on "new age" music --extremely pleasurable.] [Favorite weeding tool: the Garden Works Ken Ho weeder.]

I appreciate this topic since it is part of this weekends tasks. Canadian Thistle has proven to be a major headache for me since apparently pulling is only effective if you pull them often while small since the they regrow from the roots.

Also, I am always nervous about using weeds for composting... probably depends on the weed but if anyone knows which route for which weeds I'd appreciate it.

I mulch and pull weeds by hand whenever I walk by. The front bed is under control. The back bed had landscape fabric installed by the previous owner. That worked for a year but now this super invasive vine from the neighbors yard is coming up 7 feet away. I mulch and I'm slowly removing the fabric as I plant by cutting large holes in it. I've planted several groundcover perennials that I hope will take over.

My name: one weed that you shouldn't let wither in the garden or compost pile is the invasive plant "garlic mustard". The plant stores enough nutrients in its stem that even after pulling it, the flowers will mature, as will the seeds, and then you have 500 more plants. I put them in a black garbage bag with some water, twist it shut, and throw the bag somewhere in the garden where I won't notice it (under a spruce, behind a cedar...) After four months of hot weather, they will be mush. Two months in the bag though, is not enough to kill them!

I use a combination of methods. I mulch. I hoe. I'll use round-up and sedge ender in areas where I won't accidently spray ornamentals. I'll crawl on kneepads and pull individual weeds, especially after a rain. I find a hori-hori knife to be especially helpful in easily getting the roots out. It's really not that bad if I upkeep on a regular basis.

Landscape fabric doesn't do it for me, we have sedge which shoots right through it like a guided missle. It also compacts the soil more than I'd like.

I get a perverse satisfaction by throwing weeds n the middle of the concrete or lawn, knowing the lawn mower will be turning them into weed pesto.

To answer the original question, I don't. A recurring pattern I see in my area is people who keep their yards spotless, almost as though it were the inside of the house don't have much serious gardening going on - even when they belong to plant or gardening groups and open their places to organized events. And real plant nuts like me tend to have kind of a mess. (These days here on my property it is more than kind of). Those who have both a heavily planted place and more or less total control, like the ones you see shown in gardening magazines are highly exceptional in my experience.

I really only have problems with 1 weed: Oxalis (the dandelions and Canadian Thistle are much more controllable). At first I thought it was clover and would make a good nitrogen-fixer for the soil, so I let it spread. Big mistake!

To control it I use hand-weeding, a little bit of gentle raking, and mulch. I find that in spots were the mulch is too thin or has been pushed aside is where it pops up like crazy. When the mulch is thicker and in place I get very little, but inevitably each spring I am too slow in getting all my new mulch down. This year I am also planting groundcovers (mostly Serbian Bellflowers and Creeping Speedwell) to reduce the amount of hand-weeding I have to do and the amount of mulch I need to buy and put down. Basically more plants will eventually mean less work and less money spent!

In areas with a lot of Oxalis I spend some time to pull out all of the visible ones, and then every couple of days I walk by and pull the two or three news ones that popped up. Slowly but surely I am catching up to them, and removing them faster than they are spreading. The hard part is keeping up in the spots that are hard to reach, like right behind a shrub or weaving through the thorny roses.

Snap shot or Preen, spring and fall. It does wonders. I still have to pull a few, but 80% less than w/o. I quit using the barriers. It did nothing and the weeds/grass just grow on top. If you have horsetail, etc it would benefit using the fabric. Otherwise I find it's alot of work and waste of money. Just my experience anyway. Hopefully you'll find something that works for you! I hate spending time pulling weeds when there's other things to do - like sipping wine and smelling the roses! :)

I use mulch too, but I also do a big weed job at the beginning of spring along with what some of the others have said. Then, I pull by hand around areas that are hard to rake. I use a hand rake to get the weed seedlings and unwanted grass, and I do it every week where I see them starting to pop up. Here's my little paradise finally weed free. I have a lot of pots because we are renting and everything will be coming with me if I ever decide to move.

Edit: I forgot to mention all that area around the square plot had waste high weeds and grass that was shoveled out. I did it in two weekends by myself.

Oh my goodness you have an amazing garden ! You should start a thread so more people can admire your work !! Wow . Beautiful! And I love your pots . Sometimes the cost of pots deters me but seeing how lovely they look is changing my mind. Wow ! That wisteria !! How old is it ?

Oh thank you so much Lilyfinch! I do love to garden it's been three years of work so far. I would much prefer sticking things in the ground, but the pots do have a certain appeal compared with the look of a traditional garden.

The wisteria is about one year old in my garden. I bought it last year as a standard from a nursery. I would assume it's way older than that though. Its a slow grower too. It's the non-invasive American variety and it reblooms all summer. I love the Japanese and Chinese wisteria of course, but those produce their show in spring and that's it. Plus they are vigorous and hard to control I've heard. This one is called Amethyst Falls. In fact, I have grown to love those quaint racemes.

I am quite new to your site here and I just started an interest in rose growing as opposed to perennials, so when things start to bloom more I will definitely try to share!

I made a rose garden for a friend. She shares my distate for pulling up weeds, so I suggested covering the soil with a thin fiber matte with holes cut out for the roses, and then covering the fiber matte with a layer of bark chips. Now all she has is gorgeous roses on a tidy bed with no weeds.

Va Joh - I am going to look for that wisteria .. I've seen it locally but before but never thought of putting it in a pot ! What a great idea :) and for only gardening 3 seasons you are unstoppable!

Laurie that's what I tried but I still have weeds growing on top of the fabric ! It seems to be all the same weed so I need to just keep ontop of it and also get over it ;)

But considering that there's no soil above the fiber matte, only bark chips, isn't the weed less plentiful and easier to pull out?

In my experience, grass-type weeds just root through any kind of weed fabric to the soil underneat... and the fabric just makes an even bigger mess, even if there is no soil on top. Smothering with cardboard has worked way better in my yard, with the mulch or bark chips on top of that instead of weed fabric or fiber matte. Smothering or layering over the top of the green grass turns it into green fertilizer for your soil instead of an annoying weed. But that's just my experience and to each his or her own.

Around the flowers, shrubs, and veggies, I use a stirrup hoe.

In the lawn I am fortunate to live where St Augustine grass grows. It grows dense enough to crowd out all the grassy weeds, but not the broadleaf weeds. If I think the St Aug is getting pushed around I will spray with an atrazine product. That kills just about everything except St Aug, for some unknown reason.

Interesting, Cori Ann. It has worked great for my friend so far, but maybe only works for so long and the effectiveness will eventually wear off. I hope not.

Laurie , in retrospect it is much less plentiful than what I started with !! I made the mistake of using cheap mulch that broke down pretty fast and that has left a thin enough layer of "soil" plus the grass grows these tiny roots through the fabric and then put the other side to reach the good soil . I do hope it works for your friend ! :)

Forgot to mention that I use a shovel for Canadian thistle. I stab it in through the tap root right under the soil and it does not come back. In 2014 my yard was full of them, but they are all gone now.

Va Joh - your garden is sublime!! I take my hat off to you!

Carol

Yes, a beautiful garden indeed. Va Jon, you did a good job!

I have a lot of Canadian thistle. I have been pulling them out every week, can't keep up. I used a shovel 2 days ago , it was too much pulling.