Very timely, Sammy. My main "chore" of the day today is to rid the front garden areas of weeds. I'm dreading it. I already have some blue bearded iris blooming out there and I need to remove the remaining weeds so I can fully enjoy the iris. But at least I don't have any bermuda in the garden areas. I make sure of that by keeping the bermuda sprayed with Round-Up when it gets too close to the outer perimeter of the garden edging.

Have you tried "Grass B Gone" on the bermuda that's in your garden area? I have never had a need for it, but I did see it at Wal-Mart this week and bought a small bottle ... just in case.

Good luck today ... it will all be worth it when you're done.

Randy

Thanks, Randy. My problem is that the bermuda is dormant. Many people spray their yards with Round Up this time of year to rid the grass of weeds, but it does not affect the bermuda since it is still dormant. I think Grass B Gone might work the same way.

As I write this I remember that Round Up is no longer considered safe in beds because it may remain on mulch. I think it is Malcolm Manners who said that he has instructed people to keep it out of (rose) beds.

Round Up is the only chemical I intend to use. I intend to spray it around the beds and in the paths because I cannot keep the weeds out any other way.

I think I must just muddle through it, and do my best. The verbena will grow, and grow too much, so I should just pull where it is necessary.

Sammy

Sammy,

Preventing weeds save a lot of time in my beds, leaving me more time to smell the roses.

Bermuda grass is a blessing and a curse, its best qualities also its worst. My short cut to offer is to deal with it in a serious fashion during the bed construction, it will save so much time in the long run. I hand dig my huge beds, very careful to remove any remnant of root/runners before planting. It is impossible to get it all and have small sprigs coming up the first year, requiring religious patroling to get it before it takes hold. I use that 5" black landscape border to edge the perimeters before placing a border of natural rock. Also, I find that a larger bed is easier to maintain than a narrow one, at least 4' wide.

I would try to contain the verbena in an area where the Bermda cannot infiltrate.

Also, I find all my perennials make it just fine through the mulch. Keeping a nice, deep mulch year round will keep your weeds down, preventing germination. Applying corn gluten works as a great pre-emergent.

I had the same problem in a large bed in back of my horse barn. Poppies come up in it every spring and they are simply gorgeous. But by the time they go to seed so I can collect it....the weeds have taken hold and it is next to impossible to control them. This year I just jumped in and hoed out the offending little green weeds, pulled others and put roundup on the tops of those coming up. I dont have poppies - but they self seeded in other flower beds so I will have some. I am in process of planting this bed with pastel colored roses, mostly old gardens but a few Austins, some climbers on the fence. I am topdressing them with old horse compost then when finished planting, I will put a thick mulch over all and spot spray with roundup any offending weeds that poke through. I intend to be diligent about it this year and visualize great beauty in a couple of months. Though I love verbena and other plants like it....for me, there is too much opportunity for weeds to poke through then it looks a mess, so for plants like that, I plan to put them in pots and place them throughout the rose bed. I can still have those plants - just not entertwined with weeds. You could plant these sorts of plants in a big plastic pot and cut the bottom out and bury the pot. I also plant my roses inside big nursery pots with the bottoms and half the sides cut out. This way, the water and fertilizer go straight down to the roots and doesnt run off the top. I am making good progress with this bed - was outside planting and playing until midnight last night - have good lights out the back of the barn that are perfect for this. I am determined this bed is going to be a showpiece this year - got quite a few older roses there that will be making a show, but I have had it with this being a weedbed, beautiful blooming roses nonwithstanding. Good luck with your weeding. Just do one patch at a time, you will see progress and want to keep going!!
Judith

Grass is such a pain in the flower beds and so hard to remove. My husband digs a 5" deep trench around all my beds and it really helps keep out the grass roots. I still have to keep an eye out, as some sprout up from seed and a few extra deep roots work their way in also. But I'm not getting nearly as much grass in the garden as I used to. I've avoided using Round up in my yard at all, as the drift will damage the roses, even if you are very careful. The results look like Rose Rosette disease at first, with red, small distorted leaves. I use a 2-3" mulch of shredded bark to keep down weeds as well (keeps the soil nice and moist too). It doesn't help in the spring, but one way I remember where my bulbs are in the fall is to plant annual wax begonias over the bulbs as soon as the bulb foliage starts to die back. Come fall, when I'm planting new bulbs or perennials, I know I don't want to dig anywhere where there are these annuals. You can use any kind of annual you like - moss roses are wonderful too.

Similar to Karenforroses's annuals on top of bulbs, one way to mark perennials is to put grape hyacinths close to the perennials, The grape hyancinths come up early and are fairly distinctive. They come in white and blue/purple.

This probably isn't much help for the situations described here, but I want to mention it. We have lots of Bermuda grass in compact soil. I make my beds slowly, over a period of years starting with the roses, and I've found that Bermuda grass can be greatly discouraged by a heavy mulch: ours is about 4" of hay. This plus the competition from desirable plants appears to be slowly defeating the Bermuda grass. I wonder whether allowing the garden to be drier and have a rest period in the hottest part of summer might help? In spite of the original large population of this pest, it's no longer a major problem in our beds. I've never used an herbicide on it.

I'm busy with cleanup these days too. Lord, how many climbers to prune and tie!

Melissa

I do not mean to hijack this thread, but I have a question...I had a bad amount of black spot last year...so I have made a decision to spray this year with banner maxx. I got it yesterday. My question is, should I clean all of the mulch out of my beds and replace it with new mulch before everything starts growing, or can I just spray with banner maxx on the roses and mulch and put new mulch on top. I'm sorry if this sounds like a stupid question. But my daddy always says, work smarter, not harder. :)

mary

Sammy, I began at 7:30 AM this morning and worked non-stop until 1:30 PM ... pulling tons of weeds out of the large planting areas in the front yard, pruning the roses in those beds (they turned out great), cleaning up last years dead growth from the freshly emerging perennials, mowing, edging, & light pruning of some lower small limbs on a couple of the trees out there. I couldn't have gotten it all done without some great help from my daughter.
Six hours of intensive, non-stop work (it's not a large front yard at all) ... but what a difference it made. I just can't stop staring at it out there. It was a perfectly beautiful day out there weatherwise - not hot and not cold, and a nice breeze. The backyard and sideyard planting areas will be for another day, I was too pooped to give them a second look (they're not in too bad of shape anyway).

About RoundUp. It's one of the very few chemicals I use out there, along with occasional spot treatment for fire ant mounds and occasional use of spot treatment on the lawn with Weed-B-Gone spray. RoundUp is a life saver out there, when used along the outside perimeter of the garden area edging. It has effectively kept 100% of the bermuda grass out of my planting areas. Over the years, when I built and prepared those large planting beds, I nearly broke my back to make sure all the grass was removed before planting, and I'll be darned if I'll ever give it a chance to get into my beds. So, I agree with you on the RoundUp ... it's a keeper! Since I only use it on the perimeter of the planting areas, and am really careful, I've never had a problem with it drifting onto my desirable plants. I spray it on days when there is little to no breeze.

Randy

Randy, we must have had the same type of day. I went out at about 8:30, and did not come in to stay until around 5:30.

First I cut back all 11 Knock Outs, and my 4 Martha Gonzalez, and asked my husband to bag up the clippings. He never knows where I want them cut, and is content to just bag.

I have far more freeze damage than I had realized, but did complete about 1/3 of the front bed. Our front bed is most of the yard and can be overwhelming. I have not taken a good look at the roses in the back, but many of the ones in the front are what I moved in the fall when I discarded so many roses that were not disease resistant. I am not sure that the move affected the canes, or if it was just our recent weather.

Greybird, I make my own problems, I guess. This bed is 20 years old, and I love the purple in those verbenas. I managed to cut them back, and raise them up to get the bermuda. We had watered much of the day on Friday, so that bermuda wasn't bad, but oh, the dandelions! Some of those roots must have been a foot long.

Judith, the pots are a good idea, but the verbena is not a problem where it is planted, it takes roots all over, and I need to decide where to cut it. It did turn out ok, though. You were out until midnight?? My goodness, where do you get your strength? We don't have the kind of light outside where I can do too much work, but we have a huge light that we do move outside sometimes that makes it almost feel like daylight. I usually use it on hot summer days, but then the mosquitoes are a huge problem.

Karen, I like the suggestion about the annuals. I also agree with the Round Up. When I water so often in the summer, sometimes I catch the spray with the sunlight, and am amazed at the drift of the spray. Even if I have the setting on a strong stream of water, it is interesting to me the little mist that seems to float into the sky. Round up would do that also. For years I have intended to paint Round Up or use a roller, but I have never done that.

Ann, I don't use the grape hyacinths, but I know what they look like, and they are very pretty. What a good idea!

Melissa, I love the pictures of your farm, but mine isn't at all that size, and I have no patience. Your planning and patience seem to really reward you because you do have an outstanding garden.

Mary, as you may realize, I don't spray anymore, but I do think the latest word is that the fungus does not remain like we used to think it did. I would not do anything but spray the roses, and leave the mulch alone.

Randy, it does make you feel good to see the results of your work. The weeding is difficult, but once I put in the mulch, and neatly arrange the big rocks, I feel good.

I have a week to go, then spring break.THat is when my new roses arrive.

In the meantime I need to start my vegetables.

Thanks everyone.
Sammy

Sammy, your spring break seems a little early this year, am I wrong?
I detest weeds and it is a tie between weeding and getting up leaves, of which I dislike most. Before we put down mulch in the fall, I put some black plastic down in some areas. We don't have our lawn sprayed so now I'm getting weeds from the grass! Just imagine for a minute life without weeds. Heavenly.

Carla

Our season is of course much later than yours. Also we don't have Bermuda grass just ordinary stuff which is still a real pain.

My question is this: is it possible to just leave last years leaves, dead weeds, etc. Consider it stuff that will decompose into mulch so why get rid of it? So instead of raking just cover the mess with a layer of compost, composted manure, Milorganite or whatever. And as soon as the grass grows use clippings over newspaper?

Thinking out loud sort of I guess it might be easier to just rake them!!

Jim,
I do leave the debris, along with pruned material; if it's too unsightly I cover it with my standard hay mulch. The only organic matter originating in my garden that leaves it is plant material that may harbor killer pathogens (black spot and mildew are not in that category). It works fine for me.
Melissa

One man's debris is another man's mulch.

OK the debris is looking better and better!

I'd leave the debris except I have so many little perennials and self-seeding annuals like poppies sprinkled among the roses that need a bit of sunshine and growing before I mulch the beds in the spring. That's one reason I like beds just dedicated to shrubs - I don't worry when it comes to mulching time, I can heap the mulch on anytime of the year and I don't have to rake them out. I admit I don't have dedicated rose beds but I do have a dedicated viburnum bed that's easy squeezie - the mower just blows the chopped leaves right into it and I'm done!

One exception to that rule is that I do rake out my front foundation bed because that is where all the oak leaves blow to and I get a stack a foot deep which doesn't break down quickly enough. I learned that one year when I decided to leave them and it started smelling like septage due to anaerobic decomp - out they went to the compost pile!

I suppose I could bury the little winter annual weeds that show up in my mixed beds, like chickweed and henbit, but I cultivate them out anyway. It's a good early spring ritual that gets me out in the garden on a warm sunny day before I can do much of anything else. And I get to check on the garden up close and personal (I tend to sit in the garden with a hand cultivator to do the task)and check out the worm population and find the vole tunnels and discover perennials emerging that I forgot I planted last year ( I really like your suggestions of using annuals and bulbs to mark the spots, I may try that next time), etc, etc.

My dump load of compost comes next week, that marks the official beginning of gardening season for me - bring it on!

I had the most wonderful weekend. TOday it is turning cold, but I was able to work on Saturday and Sunday. I have almost finished my front bed, but have not touched the back.

I have winter kill and feel much better when I cut out what needs to be cut out, then begin to admire the rest of the garden. My irises are coming up - not bearded, but the other kind. The columbine look great - about 5 clumps. The daffodils are doing well, and I see that the salvia and my beautiful Homestead purple verbenas are looking good. It makes a huge difference to weed, but then to put down the fresh mulch and set the stones where they belong helps it shape up.

I hope we start getting warm weather by this Friday. My spring break begins at exactly 3:05 on Friday. We are deserving of good weather.

Good luck to all of you, and I hope you all have good weather.

SAmmy

Sammy, enjoy your spring break! Sounds like you are ready to enjoy that garden.

Randy

But what do you do about persistent grassy weeds growing up around the base of the rose? I don't seem to be able to get rid of this problem, no matter what I do, and I've tried hand-painting round-up on the the blades of grass--the roses are fine, but the grass just laughs at the round-up and seems equally happy. I've thought about actually digging the roses up, pulling away all the grass and resetting them, but am too afraid of killing them in the process. I also have ajuga coming up in another section and after years of fighting that too, wondered if I should just give up. It's under an enormous maybe-not-Reine des violettes (bought from HOGR 10 years ago, and it was bandied about that it wasn't really RDV, but whatever, it's gorgeous, amazing and huge), so maybe it doesn't matter and I should just let it go--if the ajuga roots are shallow, then they won't bother the roses. Thoughts? Thanks. M.

mary rose, you can do either, spray first and then put down mulch or put down mulch and then spray. I never take up old mulch. You can spray the old mulch with Banner Maxx, that might get rid of any lingering bs spores in the mulch. But usually if you put new mulch on top, it will suppress any spores. I would spray as soon as the roses are leafed out. Mine just sprouted seemingly in one week and I see some BS on the new leaves already! Yikes! I think our cool at night, warm during the day temps plus lots of rain did that. I'm going to try to spray on Tuesday.