Is there landscape fabric under the rocks?

tj

No fabric.

You could try using a butane or propane torch. Mine is a Red Dragon, probably more fire power than you need. The idea is to dehydrate the plant, not burn it. Very effective on little weed sprouts. Maybe not for use in a dry climate, but useful here in the Pacific Northwest. Takes care of slugs, too.

Remove the rocks, add mulch, plant closer so weeds don't have sunlight to get them growing.

Your mulch isn't thick enough. you can add more rocks or remove them and put in a thick layer of bark mulch but mixing them doesn't sound like a good idea.

My ’no bare ground’ philosophy is driven by a desire for easy weed control - a lot of weed seeds need light to germinate so covering the ground with plants, especially ones with large leaves, reduces the opportunites for weeds to establish. Like laceyvail, I’d say add more plants so they are closer together. You will never entirely get rid of weeds but you can reduce the quantity! The rocks look small enough that I might just try to plant into them without removing them as long as you can easily move them out of the way to dig planting holes. I put a big ’’Elegans’’ hosta in one place in the front garden bed that was plagued with couchgrass - the hosta can grow in full sun with sufficient moisture and the couchgrass can’t survive constant shade, so the hosta looks good there and prevents the couchgrass from invading the garden.. That’s the sort of solution that would work good for you. You already have hostas there so try adding some plain green ones with big leaves - they would look good with the variegated hostas and cover more of the bare ground.

I wouldn't advise applying mulch over rock and it's a lazy way out to achieve short term gratification. Removing the rock and washing out the dirt, applying a heavy duty landscape fabric and reapplying the rock, or removing rock, digging down a few more inches and applying mulch is how one should do it. I remove and wash my rock every 5 to 10 years and add new fabric if needed. After time any thickness of rock will fill will with organic matter and gives a place for weed seeds to grow between the rocks.

You'll need to apply 3 to 4 inches over the rock to suppress weeds, and what I see it would be 3 to 4 inches above your sidewalk and lawn and will become a constant mess. The mulch will breakdown as in any mulch application and mix with the rocks. If new yearly applications of mulch aren't added weed roots will grow into the rocks making the job of removing the rocks 10 times harder.

I removed 20 yards of mulch covered rock overgrown by weeds along a fence which was 6" higher than the now rotten fence bottom. It's not a hand job and I used my small backhoe and bobcat and tore up the lawn pretty bad. (I told them it would and they were fine with it). It would of been 5 times higher if they wanted it done by hand with wheel barrows, but someone else would need to do the job because I wouldn't.

When we began gardening here I made the mistake of using landscape fabric as a means of trying to control weeds. Big mistake! The soil here was high in clay and low in organic matter. Landscape fabric is touted as being permeable to air and water, making it beneficial. What is not pointed out is that it is impermeable to soil organisms (e.g. worms and other live insects) that draw dead leaves and plant material into the soil that, together with the dead bodies of insects, and fungi etc., are the main sources of organic matter in the soil. The movement of the insects etc. through the soil creates channels in the soil that allow for the movement of air and water. So, as the landscape fabric negatively affects that soil enviroment, the insects etc. move out, their tunnels collapse and the soil ends up compacted and poorer in organic matter. To top it off, weed seeds will germinate in whatever is on top of the fabric (e.g. mulch or rocks) and send their roots down through the fabric, making them harder to remove…

After a few years I realized that was happening, making my soil worse while not doing much to control weeds, so I removed the fabric (not an easy thing to do!) and opted instead for my ’no bare ground’ planting approach. My soil is now much healthier and the weeds are fewer and easier to remove.

As far as I can see, the only viable use for lanscape fabric is under the gravel base for hardscaping where it will help keep the gravel from moving into the soil and where its negative effects on the soil environment doesn’t matter as much since plant material is not expected or desired to grow where hardscaping is located.

I’ll second woodyoak’s unhappy experience with landscape fabric. weeds grew through the fabric and were more difficult to pull. After I removed the fabric the plants spread much more so there are now fewer weeds and they can be removed more easily.

What do you guys think about just leaving as is and weeding monthly when the weeds start to look bad? I have been doing it the past 5 years (usually paying someone to do it). Am I an idiot, or what?

Can I say how refreshing it is to hear you say "I am lazy". Made me smile. But hard work now will save you lots later. I third the comment no landscape fabric (especially not plastic, that stuff is awful!). Dig out rocks....even a bit at a time, a really thick layer of mulch, plants that will eventually be close together (check their end size when deciding how far apart they should be), and glance for weeds every time you pass. If they're trying to root in a thick layer of mulch, they're often really easy to pull as you pass, root and all without getting your fingers dirty. My first three years of serious gardening were awful, so much sweat and hard work all summer. Now I work really hard in late April and early May, and spend the rest of the summer doing a quick tour to deadhead and pull those little guys out before they get big. And I've got lots more garden (landscape and veggies). Yours would be a Saturday in spring, and done for the rest of the year except for those pass-and-pulls.

I find weeding through mulch much easier than weeding through rocks. My yard has 90% mulch flower beds that are relatively weed free from the occasional (monthly-ish) weeding. I have one strip of rock and it's a mess right now with weeds. In fact, it's often a mess with weeds. I would probably remove the rock, make sure you're digging down when weeding, and put a thick bed of mulch. And then planting more plants to get them to grow together and crowd out weeds. Also, nothing wrong with not wanting to spend your time weeding. I think it's a rare person that enjoys it.

I agree with the weed torch, super easy to do with weeds in rocks.