This has been the bane of my endeavor for more than 30 years. I try to keep grass and other weeds out of my customers’ flower beds and they always grow back! One customer has a nice planter with roses, daisies, ice plant and a pine tree; I would prefer to use my hoe and shovel, but I can’t–the planter contains buried plastic sprinkler-system piping and I don’t dare. How about it? Would I do well to put plastic sheets (the kind of material lawn-and-leaf bags are made of) over the ground, to stop the weeds, presuming the customer will approve of it?
I await other Dopers’ advice on an effective procedure. This planter is in south central Torrance, CA, in rather sandy soil less than 5 miles from the beach.
I had weed problems, actually GRASS problems,in one of my islands. The plastic worked fine. I’m hoping that in a year or two I’ll be able to remove it and not have the problem again. Once all the roots die, you know.
In my other beds, RoundUp works the best. They have a foam, too, for better aim.
Good luck!
Run out of Agent Orange?
Yeah, use that ‘weed barrier’ stuff… the landscaping plastic. Works very well!
The most rewarding part was when I got my money!
-Dr. Nick Riviera
Get some household strength glyphosate (like Roundup), follow the directions, and mix up a spray bottle-full. As herbicides go, it’s environmentally safe, and it kills the roots. Make sure you only spray the weeds, because it will kill the good plants too, if it contacts them.
An old weed science professor I once knew told me that weed seeds can stay viable in the soil for YEARS. And every time you don’t get the weed out of there before it sets seed, you’ve added many more seeds that can stay there for years. Like cockroaches, this is a lifetime battle.
Don’t use plastic like in garbage bags. Weeds will grow through plastic that thin and the plastic keeps the soil from exchanging air and water.
Buy the woven weed barriers. They will stop most of the weeds. Only a few large ones poke through.
Covering the woven fiber with large bark chips will hold the cloth in place. I don’t use stones because, when you want to change things the bark can be tilled in, the stones will be there forever.
Use heavy duty black plastic over a a patch of ground to kill off everything under the plastic over a few sunny days.
You can keep the weeds under control with a two inch thick pile of living moss in containers.
Milled spaghnum moss is a good top dressing at about two inches deep to hold in moisture and prevent sun scald on plants like iris.
I use plants like leaf lettuce to cover the ground around tomatoes or peppers. You don,t have to eat it all. It does stop most weeds from growing.
As the plastic deteriorates, it begins to come up through the mulch and causes more problems than it’s worth.
Round-up only works on emerged weeds. It’s better to stop them from germinating. Ronstar is a pre-emergent weed control agent. There are others. A little goes a long way and it is totally safe to apply over emerged plants. In our nursery we have a jar with holes in the lid. When a cart of plants are ready to be set out, we sprinkle Ronstar as if it were table salt. It will last for several months, depending on rain, etc.
Good luck,
John
If chickens could pee, they would be wet on the bottom.
A tip for the use of Round Up. It kills any plant that the chemical touches. Use a paint roller for large areas, such as rows of plants in a garden. A brush for smaller areas. Using a spray bottle is a very good way to kill what your trying to raise. Never use a the sprayer for applying different herbicides either.
I’m only your wildest fear, from the corners of your darkest thoughts.
Well not quite. Bindweed is practically impervious (though,i hear if you cut a bit off of the end of a stem and put the stem in a small container of round up, that may help to get the plant to take it into it’s system). Bamboo is impervious also (it will just kill spots on the leaves, not the whole thing). Fortunately ivies are killed by it.
Thick layers of mulch help. When I put mulch in my yard, It has kept most of the weedy grasses from getting a foot hold. I still have weeds coming up, but that’s because they were in the soil already (if you dont have European annual grasses, or black medic, consider yourselves lucky). But, the mulch is helping. It also makes it easier to find the weeds that I always used to miss when we didnt have it.
I agree about the plastic being trouble. My grandparents have it in their yard, and it’s deteriorating. It pops up through the rocks, and even annual grasses get a foot hold because of holes. THick, heavy landscape fabric is a better choice. It also lets air and water get through, as others have said.
It’s worth the risk of burning, to have a second chance…
Suprised no one mentioned Preen (chemical name: treflen or something like that. Don’t have a container in front of me). Does a good job as a pre-emergent which means it won’t kill a single weed, but it will stop weed seeds from germinating in the soil. Between a good vigorous hand weeding to start with, a woven landscape fabric (not plastic sheeting which cooks the soil and is only useful under landscape stone), and an application of Preen, you should be doing okay.
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
Oh… I should of mentioned a layer of bark mulch over the fabric. Three inches is the landscaping standard.
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
Sometimes the soil gets old, buy fresh soil, it won’t have seeds in it.
You don’t want to get rid of all the weeds now do you? Cuz you want to have a job next week, right?
Also, Moss, the blasted moss on the sidewalks is NOT a plant but a microbe. You need something else for that.
Pavement. 
Seriously though, I fight this problem myself, and I like a lot of the ideas presented.
Good Luck!
VB
I could never eat a mouse raw…their little feet are probably real cold going down. :rolleyes:
If you dont like chemicals, some boiling water does the trick on them weeds mighty mighty fast I might add.
I was refering to the stuff growing under the trees that is up to 6 inches deep.
I’m only your wildest fear, from the corners of your darkest thoughts.
“I was refering to the stuff growing under the trees that is up to 6 inches deep.”
Those are truffles. Rent a pig to dig them up for you & youll get quite a bit of money for them.
“I have gathered a posie of other men’s flowers, and nothing but the
thread that binds them is mine own.”
Several of the posts here have mentioned mulch. One word of caution: termites love the stuff. It’s OK for flowerbeds away from the house - at least 6 feet away (further is better).
Do NOT mulch beds that abut the house. Weeds outside are preferable to termites inside.
I used Weed-Be-Gone (recommended by a professioanl gardener I know) and it did no good at all. (I later found out the customers already had some–in a huge jug; apparently it was no more efficacious for me than for them.) I tried putting the plastic down and the customer asked me two days later, to remove it.
So it looks like the customer, who wants to do some planting, will want me to hunker down with the shovel and my screen…THAT will be an all-day project… 
In areas where you don’t mind killing everything, you can pour boiling water. It kills things within a few seconds if you saturate them well. It kills weed seeds, too. And a minute or two after you pour it, it’s completely harmless — unlike Roundup. (Glyphosate itself is fairly non-toxic, I’ve heard, but Roundup contains some highly toxic detergents to help get the glyphosate into the plants.)
Boiling water has several disadvantages: it is dangerous to work with and relatively difficult to control — it can kill everything within several inches.
Put the soil in your oven & bake at 500 deg for 4 hours, should get rid of the weed seeds.
Wow. Boiling water, really?? I will try that. I have a very weedy slope in front of my house, and would love to kill the weeds fast. But I don’t want to cook my wormies! Hmm…
I won’t use Round-up. I am an organic gardener, and despite some people’s claims that Round-up is “okay,” I still won’t use it. It just doesn’t sit right with me.
This year, in some sections of the garden, I have used newspaper as the weedblocker under the mulch. I have only put it around the edges of the beds (where the weeds were worst anyway) because I do not want to block water absorption in the bed. I will let you know how it works.
Tenspeedjohn–Yikes! I guess I am not surprised that nurseries put chemicals in the plants…but Yikes!