I think it depends on how picture perfect you want your garden. I'm fussy and have dug up entire beds just to pull out all the tendrils of creeping weed. I know I'm fighting a losing battle digging up dandelions, but I'll keep doing that since I can't tolerate its fluffy seed falling into the middle of my perennials. You have the right attitude--if you like it, leave it and suggest to your niece that she create her own garden to weed . In places where it's impossible to pull a weed out of the middle of something you want to keep, I've had fairly good luck continually cutting back the weed to as close to ground level as I can, eventually some of them give up. The main thing is to have FUN!

You could try to apply Round-Up to the weeds with a paintbrush or gloved hand (rubber glove, with a cotton glove over it - dip gloved hand into Round-Up and apply to weed). It might work if there is enough of the weed growing above the rose bush, rather than entangled in it.

I would do the Round-up with a glove method suggested. Sometimes I use a rubber glove and a small piece of paper towel dunked in Round-Up. This really works well, albeit somewhat painstaking. I use this method fairly frequently because I am always having that darn Boxelder/Manitoba Maple poking up midst a peony or phlox clump. Sometimes I cut back a few of the stems of the perennial so I can get a greater number of leaves of the undesirable weed to swab. Should any accidentally get on the good plant, just quickly pull the wet leaf off the good plant and all will be O.K.

If you have any Broadleaf weed killer (2-4-D based product) on hand, you can mix it with Round-up for a super killer....especially for hard to kill stuff like Thistle.

Since you have so many wonderful perennials in that bed, I definitely think it would be worth the time to get those nasty weeds under control this year.
Jan

Oh I'm making sure nothing I don't like goes to seed. Unfortunately most of these weeds are on our state's noxious list! Loosestrife in particular is on "no culture" lists, even the supposedly sterile hybrids and non-crossing relatives! Even worse is a lot of this junk requires killing of roots that don't pull-- loosestrife comes back from dried! On a good note, I have managed to kill most of whatever was invading my raspberries-even most of the bindweed! I live close to a river and near a gov't ag lab, so my beds are pretty visible to people who KNOW!

My niece does a fair share of her own gardening (supposedly her dad's garden LOL!) She doesn't allow those things but pigweed and oxalis don't phase her all while I go nuts on them too!

I'm less than a year in this house that was neglected, so I'm still finding what I have. It frustrated me to nurture a pretty plant in the middle of a barren spot in a bed and then find out I shouldn't keep it, much less encourage it!

As for weedkillers, it hurts my neighbor's feeling but I go to the round-up! I used a broadleaf killer carefully to good effect in the berries, so I can combine them!

Sorry about the vent, and I'll just go back to pulling! Thanks!

I've had a similar situation on a few of my beds, although not with loosestrife. My suggestion is not low-effort, but what has worked for me is actually letting the weeds grow enough so they have grabbable foliage and then spading up the whole bed (ideally with a pitchfork) and shaking out each clump of soil individually and pulling out all the dislodged weeds and roots too. You can do this with established root balls too, although a rose bush might be fun to handle. This has been the only way that i've been able to clean up a bed effectively, and may require a few "turnovers" because you may not get all the roots and seeds can stay in an ungerminated state in the soil for a while.

Lythrum = loosestrife? Oh no - why didn't they tell me? I bought some from Dominion Seed House last year that said it was a non-invasive kind. Lori mentioned something about it, but she couldn't have said anything about it being loosestrife because i would have clued in to that. Should i get rid of it??

I think loosestrife's really pretty myself, which is why it lasted so long in the bed! I'm not sure how your area treats it. Here the locals won't even sell the noninvasive relatives because of the remote possibility of crossfertilization. The steriles aren't allowed either, becuase they think they might not be so sterile!

Moving plants and digging everything out with a garden fork works but takes time. You could work around your peonies and roses. Here's my experience. I had a large perennial bed that got totally over-run with grass. I had to choose between roundup or dig it all up. I don't like roundup and a friend recommended digging with a garden fork. So in 2003 I dug out all the perennials except two large peonies, which hate to be moved. The other perennials thrived and bloomed in their new locations. In 2004 I dug the bed over again with a fork to pull out grass roots that were like rope. We added compost and rototilled the bed but accidentally rototilled too close to the peonies and they got a good root pruning. This year their blooms were enormous and one plant that had never bloomed produced huge flowers. After the rototilling in 2004 we planted potatoes (around the peonies!) to loosen the soil some more. Cultivation of the potato bed got rid of the last of the grass and gave us a bumper crop of spuds. This year I am replanting the perennial bed and all the new weeds are manageable. I was lucky to have the space to move my old perennials into.