Flower Gardens

» Cottage_Garden - Preventing weeds

I'm all for less work! We've got better things to do than mess around with weeds.

The mulch should be holding down weeds, but if you have perennial weeds they may come up through it. And seeds can also blow in from wherever. Rotted down old mulch is a great seedbed. And sometimes mulch itself has weed seeds in it. Bleck.

First off you do have to allow the bulb foliage to grow and mature, ripen and yellow, and go dormant. So you do have to wait a bit before you can remove that foliage. (If you remove it too soon your bulbs won't bloom next spring.)

You might be able to prevent some of the new weeds that grow from seed by just raking the old mulch early in the season (before the bulbs are up) and then spreading a pre-emergent on top of the bed. Corn gluten is a good one to use. It only stops seeds so it should be fine around the bulbs. To get good coverage you need to sprinkle it before the bulbs grow their foliage too much.

It should be put down about when the forsythia bloom in your area, that is when the crabgrass for example starts to germinate! If you use another pre-emergent product, read the label carefully or check with the manufacturer to make sure it is ok to use around bulbs.

Later on, once you've taken away the bulb foliage, mow or weed whack very short any tall weeds and rake aside the old mulch. Then place overlapping sheets of newspaper (about ten sheets thick, dampen it to keep it from blowing around while you work) or use biodegradable mulching paper from the garden center to cover the bed. This will exclude light and should slow down any weeds that want to come up.

Then either compost your old mulch or spread it back on the bed. Top that with a layer of fresh mulch that is hopefully weed free. You want your mulch to be at least four inches thick, more is fine too.

Rake the mulch periodically to disturb any weed seeds that may try to grow, this will also fluff it up a bit. Keep it topped up to about four inches thick all summer. This should smother the weeds.

If big old perennial weeds resurface (pokeweed for example will come up through all that!) you can spot treat with an herbicide containing glyphosate. Glyphosate is indiscriminate and will work on both grasses and broadleafed weeds -- and anything else such as flowers, so be careful! Not all weed killers will kill grass type plants.

Be sure to read and follow all of the label directions carefully. Do not cut the weed back, you need foliage to absorb the herbicide. You can do a wipe on method or spray.

Depending on the weed, you may need to repeat several times. If they are still coming up in late summer to fall, that is actually an excellent time to treat as the roots are storing reserves then.

After (or instead) of treating with herbicide, you can also cut them off short and then relayer the paper over those weeds and replenish the mulch over top of them.

Your goal: Eventually the roots are so deprived of energy due to lack of photosynthesis that they give up.

You can use a stirrup or swivel or circle hoe to cut them off short, this means no bending/kneeling.

Or, a cool tool is the flame thrower weeder, it is a propane burner on a long handle and you literally burn out the weeds. Personally I am scared of it and think I could catch the mulch (or my shoes) on fire (heythis is NOT farfetched, I have cut my power cord using an electric trimmer), but some people find it satisfying. This has the same effect as cutting it off short at the ground would have.

By next spring, the paper should be pretty much decayed. So the bulbs should be able to come up through the paper and mulch, no problem. You might want to check and make sure that it has gotten soft and is falling apart. (If your climate is very dry it conceivably might not.)

If it is not rotted and you are worried about the bulbs, you might want to pull the paper out from under the mulch and let the bulbs out!

Next summer you should have fewer weeds and eventually very few. If you see weeds beginning to germinate, fluff the mulch to disturb them and the babies should die. If you see those big ole perennial weeds popping up, move fast to keep them weakening.

Planting the annuals will actually disturb the soil, and every time you disturb soil you bring more weed seeds close to the surface where they can germinate. There are a zillion weed seeds in the "soil seed bank". So it's better in this situation to skip the annuals.

Maybe you could do a nice single large container such as a whiskey barrel with annuals for a spot of color in that area, if you miss seeing flowers there in the summer. A container takes fairly frequent attention, but it is less physically taxing to care for than to care for a flower bed. Just make sure the container is big -- so it needs watering less often -- and not too low on the ground or you will be bending to work on it.

I hope this helps, if you have any questions about what I am describing, let me know!!

-- posted by Cottage_Garden