Just keep pulling the weeds and eventually you will win the war. I had the same problem with my echinacea beds; however, after a year or two of weed pulling they are now weed free. The plants will eventually smother out all the weeds. What are you growing?

We use a 4" thick mulch of 50/50 composted leaf mould & manure. Not many weeds sprout through 4" of leaf mould &, if they do, they're rooted in the mulch & very easy to pull. Way back when we used wood chip mulch weeds could & did come through & were rooted in the soil...much harder to pull.

I agree, just keep weeding & they will be fewer & fewer every year. One year's seeds = seven year's weeds!

/tricia

PREEN! You weed, then you put down Preen (tiny pellets) then water, then mulch on top. No more weeds for the rest of the season! :)

My husband and I pick weeds everytime we walk through the garden (1-2 times a day) so we stay on top of weeds as they sprout. We also use 4" of mulch. We hauled in our garden soil by double dump truck loads from a good source when we built the garden -- it was clean, weed-seed free and full of nutrients. I think we got off to a good start with that.

Weeding just after a rain is easiest.

Echinaceamaniac - The weed problem always escalates after the
Cottonwood tree releases it's seeds...they land and start with tiny weeds. I work full time and finding time to get out immediately to loosen them up is difficult. I have quite a few different Perennials growing in several gardens. And, the weeds love all of them.

Triciae - where do you get leaf mould?

NJmomma - Doesn't the Preen then kill the plants? Everything is pretty close together in gardens.

I try to layer with newspaper before mulching. It works pretty well but not 100%. I say "try" because I got really lazy this year and just tossed mulch into the beds one bucket at a time over the course of a few weeks. I just didn't feel like doing it this year. The weeds will thank me soon.

I wouldn't use that Preen stuff. I know people who have trouble with their flowers after using it.

Good luck with this problem. Have you tried putting down that black plastic and covering it with mulch? I put it under my rock garden and it works very well.

Haven't used plastic - cutting pieces of plastic and putting around the soil between plants would be a challenge. Maybe newspaper might work.

What I've run into with newspaper is that you don't want color in the pages...black and white only. When I've used it (rarely), I misted it lightly before trying to work with it so that it wouldn't blow away before I could water in.

Preen never killed my plants - that's how it's made - to kill the weeds, but not your plants. It's never made my flowers funky either. The only thing it did do was kill a bunny one year at my sister's so she won't use it again. (she didn't mulch on top) I love Preen. I can't spend every day weeding, nor would I want to.

It "only" killed a bunny?

Wow. That's why I'm organic. I figure if I have time and the desire to have a garden, I have the time and desire to weed. I weed a little bit everyday while I wander around looking at my plants... and enjoy the wildlife that is attracted to my garden and safe while it is there.

The only dead bunnies in my yard are delivered by the neighbor's cat... Circle of Life and all that...

We make our own leaf mould. We've got tons of deciduous trees so never run out of leaves. In our damp coastal climate plus about 50" of annual precipitation the leaves rot down in about 3 months. We mix them 50/50 with composted manure. Makes a great mulch & feeds the soil. Everything gets top dressed in the spring with 4" of this stuff. I love the natural look of the beds too.

/tricia

Preen is really long lasting and it can harm any animal it comes in contact with, including any animal that digs into the mulch, like a dog or cat. It gets into water systems and is extremely toxic to fish. I use some chemicals, but not Preen. It is really harmful to the environment, IMO.

You can control weeds very effectively by mulching with 3-4" of compost or other materials. Most weed seeds need light to germinate, so if you mulch thickly enough, nothing will germinate under the mulch. Using Preen under a mulch not only harms the environment, but is unnecessary.

For annual weeds coming through the crowns of perennials, if I can't pull them, I just dead head them so they don't set seeds. If I can't pull perennial weeds, I use a few drops of Roundup that I paint on with a kid's art paint brush so I don't get any on the plants I don't want to kill. (Unlike Preen, Roundup breaks down very quickly and can be used to good effect in very small amounts, so I feel ok using it when nothing else will solve the problem. YMMV.)

I would not recommend using plastic as mulch. No water will penetrate and plants growing near it will not be able to spread out their roots to get the water they need. I suspect using it long-term would make the soil rather sterile as all the worms and fungi and micro-critters that are part of the soil web need moisture to survive.

The very best weed control is the shadow of the gardener. ;-) If you get out there often and don't let them get out of hand and limit the seeds, you will eventually have a lot fewer with which to contend.

With all the chemicals people pay companies to make their lawns look perfect, I don't think my one time a year use of Preen in my 8x8 foot garden is so bad. And I only put an inch or so of mulch, if I put more it would get washed away quickly since my garden bed is level with my walk way and I hate the look of anything that would border it to keep in the mulch - I like it to look open and inviting. I try to be natural with other things (house cleaners, etc...) but there is no way I am weeding every day all summer long.

There's been a couple mentions of worms on this thread so I'm linking to a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources article that I thought might be interesting to some...

We're having a problem with earthworms invading our forests here in New England also. If you hike, fish, or go camping in the woods please be careful not to inadvertently let the little invaders hitch a ride with you.

/tricia

Here is a link that might be useful: Invasive Earthworms

Mulch especially in the early years of the garden, less so later

CLOSE planting. Weeds don't have much of a chance if the ground is completely covered with plants.

GOOD soil. The main benefit is that your desired plants will grow well with good cultivation and close planting and will diminish weeds, especially if you use weed-free materials like organic mulches and well rotted compost to build that soil.

Minimal movement of plants and digging the soil. I learned that from experience. The less you move plants around and dig up the soil, the fewer weed seeds from the stored seed bank will be brought to the surface and have a chance to germinate. If you gotta move it, do it, but getting the planting right early on really does decrease weeds.

Diligent weeding early in the garden's history, mulching early on, and stable plantings are the easiest way to keep weeds down. In my old garden after 20 years, no bare ground anywhere, I had hardly any weeding to do....now the NEW place is another story......

David - This particular garden was packed closely with perennials, but somewhere along the line one variety became invasive and another one died off leaving an invasive imposter in it's place. Bottom line...had to dig up a large area of the garden just to get rid of the offenders.

I did my best with the thick clay-like soil - added peat moss, some new perennials from other garden areas - mulched...but, the weeds just love the area. Back to hands & knees digging again.

I dug up all the weeds by hand early this year, and now I'm using Roundup for spot control. One thing I've learned is that my gardens don't have to look perfect. The other thing I've learned is that if I do a little bit at a time it does help and eventually I make progress. Lots of mulch helps too as the weeds root in the mulch and are easier to pull. Close planting has been saving me some trouble this year as the weeds by the daisies aren't really a problem as you can barely see them under the giant daisy mound.

One other thing I do for my coneflowers is I add some sand on top of the soil. The coneflowers love it and it makes it so easy to pull up weeds! They cannot take root in my sandy patch!

I have my coneflowers planted pretty close together...but, did move a few to my refurbished garden. Maybe sand will help that area for weeds and to loosen the dirt as well.

Mulch and handpicking.

How about compost and decaying leaves and skip the newspaper? Part of my problem is that to do 4", some of my plants are pretty small yet, and I don't want to smother them. But I'm running low on compost, don't have a composter and have to drive way the heck to the city facility to get bags and bags of it.

If I do use newspaper, I will have to tear it and fit it around things. Then I will want to plant more. How does that work? Will I have to lay fresh newspaper wherever I plant? The leaves are not a problem, you can just brush them aside.

One bed I composted then later threw on leaves in the fall and added more this spring. What was in there came up through all of it, but for some reason, that bed didn't get many weeds at all, mainly wanted the mulch to keep the moisture in so I wouldn't have to drag the hose to it so often plus the soil needed the compost to restore nutrients.

Until I decide what might work best, I've been hoeing and have just got the border neatened up with the tiller, so I need to do something fast to keep that stuff from growing back. That is a new bed and will require diligence and probably several years to get things really under control. Grasses are the the worst problem, hard to hoe, most of the rest pulls out pretty easily especially when wet except what is stuck right in the middle of my 6 new roses, not sure how to get rid of that. I mulched just those with cypress mulch when I planted the roses but to little avail.

Corn gluten is a natural alternative to Preen, is non-toxic and serves the same function as a pre-emergent. Sprinkle it on top of your mulch. Buy it at a feed store or farm store.

Gottagarden - is this good to put on soil where tiny weeds keep emerging?

Is Roundup really safe to put on weeds?

I've used Preen for years & it's never harmed any of my plants, pets, or the local wildlife. It does keep seeds from taking hold, so if you want your plants to reseed you don't want to use it.
Now, if I could just figure out a way to keep the grass from getting in the flower beds -----. Those sneaky root travel underground then pop up in the dardnest places.

I mulch the heck out my beds with fallen leaves in the fall, put down a good, thick layer. Now, in the spring the weeds are obnoxious, must have something to do with the leaves because they seem to rooted right in the very top layer of the mulch, but a quick pass with a hand hoe uproots them and they die. After that, I don't have much of a weed problem at all, so I just hand pull whatever comes up.

MXK3 - Wow...don't know how you manage to avoid weeds.
Mine grow overnight!! Maybe it's all the trees in the area, but tons of weeds.

Roundup is fairly safe. It degrades quickly in the soil, dries on the plant in a few minutes, and can be washed off if you get it on the plant you want instead of the weeds. I've heard that it does transmit through the roots so if the roots are intermixed with another plant you can harm that plant, but I've never seen any evidence of that myself. You can also use Grass Be Gone on grass without harming other plants (check the label first though) but it isn't as effective as Roundup for me and usually takes two sprays to work. I don't use chemicals lightly, but it does help to make weeding easier. I prefer to hand pull weeds and save the Roundup for the stubborn stuff that keeps coming back.

I don't use any chemicals and don't have many problems with weeds. I'm of the same opinion as David in that if you rid yourself of them now, you'll have fewer to deal with in the future. I moved to a new house less than 2 years ago and I'm now dealing with 1 year old beds so I have more weeding to do than I did at my old place, but I'm okay with that. It's not all day, it's probably for less than 10 minutes... and I'm willing to do it because I want a garden and realize that weeds come with a garden. Every postive comes with a negative. Houses and cars are great to have, but they still require maintenance if you're going to be a responsible owner. The same is true of a garden. I don't take shortcuts that are harmful, regardless of what my neighbors, or anyone else, does. I just can't justify chemicals when a bit of labor will do the job well and will be safe. Not to be rude, but it seems a bit self indulgent to risk harm in order to save yourself some time.

The key is preparation. Taking extra time when you prepare your beds will save you time in the future. Trust me, the beds I created are pretty much weed-free, even when I'm not dilligent with the weeding... the boyfriend's beds on the other hand... chaos would be an apt word to use.

Oh, I still have weeds - like I said they're downright nasty first thing in the spring - but after that good initial first weeding it's really no big deal. By this time of year, there really aren't many at all. Agree with above - bed prep and mulch are keys as is staying on top of things. Takes a few (maybe 10) minutes to make a quick pass through through the beds once a week and yank up anything that sprouted as opposed to letting it all go to heck and then it seems like the weeding takes over.

I find if I go through the beds 2 or 3 times a week I can stay on top of things and not go too crazy. I also stop to pull a few weeds or deadhead while I get the mail, take the dog out, come home for lunch, etc. Plus, the farther along in the summer you get, the fewer the weeds. The thing I don't like about Preen, aside from the toxicity, is that a lot of my flowers self seed and if you use Preen, they won't grow (that's how it works on weeds, it doesn't kill existing ones, it prevents the seed from developing). I have used Roundup, but only on poison ivy that was growing on the side of my house, and I was very careful not to get it on anything else. It was a little scary how well it worked!
Anyway, the key is to keep it up regularly. I actually enjoy weeding -- for me it's my downtime. I just zone out, smell the earth and flowers and greenery, listen to the birds and the breeze, watch the dragonflies sun themselves, and forget my worries for a while.

Plenty of mulch and 1-2 times a week weeding, get even the tiniest weed. But you shouldn't have many if you have mulched heavily.

I figure if a product kills one set of things, it will kill other things. I thought the label on Preen said not to cover it w mulch. I used it one time in select beds a few yrs ago and the rest of it's been laying in the garage ever since. The label clearly says it's a poison.

I have a variety of different kinds of hoes that work in different beds to reduce grief for me. Like everyone else I find that the better/looser the soil, the easier it is to weed and the easier it is for me to get motivated to stay on top of it. The beds that haven't been well amended I dread. So I use newspaper and cover w mulch. You can just fold the newspaper to fit around plants and then layer mulch on top. A shovel of compost, the newspaper and then mulch is great food for the plants.

For me, it's finding the time to weed during the week. Putting some newspaper around plants sounds like a great idea for the areas that are more problematic. And, adding compost around the plants as well. And, trying to find 15 minutes here and there to spot weed more often.

I'm with you Janice. It seems the older I get, the less time I have to weed. But on the weekends, that's when I do it. I really love to pull out those things. When I retire, I'll have the time to keep my gardens nearly weed free. I 'paint' Roundup on the nasty big ones and the creeping Charlie when it gets too close to my gardens. Otherwise, I pull them out. After it rains, or after watering, they are pretty easy to pull out.

Kat