After hearing many other gardeners extol the virtue of Preen pre-emergent I tried it 3 years ago on my front mixed border. It has done a very good job. You have to get the right kind of Preen. They have 2 versions and one is safe on vegetables and that's not the one to use. I'd look at the container for the main ingredients but it's outside and it's dark out now. BTW, they do have a Preen that has fertilizer in it as well as the weed suppressor that I also use. I use straight Preen early (Feb or March depending on the weather) and then follow up in about 3 months time (again weather dependent) with a 2nd does of the Preen with the added fertilizer. My subjective findings are that both those treatments have improved the overall beauty of the bed, with less weeding and better flowering...................Maryl

I wonder if the Preen I used was for veggies, I could not tell much improvement the year i tried it. I may give it another try, did not realize there were 2 types

Weeds seem especially bad here this year, both in the daylily beds and in the lawn. A heavy layer of much in the fall in daylily beds seems to help some, but a few weeds break through that anyway - right next to the daylilies.

Debra

Weeds are awful, probably partly due to all the rain. I used Preen on a section I weeded earlier and it has helped a lot, but some weeds are very intent and make it through. Hoping to weed more today even though It is still wet., the lilies love it and are showing up now.

kay

An old trick I tried many years ago as a temporary weed barrier was to put newspaper down and then the mulch on top. Even the most tenacious weed can't get to the surface with a layer of newspaper + mulch over it..........BTW, it's daylight now so I looked at my bottle of Preen. The main ingredient listed is 1.4% Trifluralin.....................Maryl

In this day of digital everything, I no longer get a newspaper, but I did find newsprint online and ordered a bunch. Thanks for the suggestion.

Using cardboard also works. In the Pandemic days with Amazon, I have cardboard.

kay

HA! We have disposed of enough cardboard to pave our whole street! I think I'll start keeping it instead. Thanks for the tip!

Dave - Don't you grow most of your daylilies in pots?

LOL Dave. Ditto on the cardboard glut. My DH, who is not into flowers at all, told me no more plants via mail order. Why? He's tired of cutting up the cardboard boxes for our overflowing trash containers.................Maryl

Debra I do have quite a few plants in pots but most are in the ground. I'm so frustrated with the weeds though, that I started thinking I should go to all pots. The weeds are way easier to pull and there is far less acreage to maintain. The downside, of course, is having to maintain all the potting mix.

Here is a new bed last year -these were first year plants. This was taken May5, 2020

Same bed today, May 7. Cardboard with shredded leaves on top.

Dave I can sympathize . I got one garden done .....only took 4 days of intense weeding , Since that one I have done 5 more only 36 more gardens to do. Never gonna end I dont think . I think I need to order a whole whack of daylilies and plant them a lot closer together .......only way to eliminate weeds. I have been fighting purple deadnettle here ......UGH that stuff is so difficult to get out . It forms masses of fine hair like roots that just don't budge , you have to dig them out .

You have my sympathy

You have a bunch of good healthy daylilies planted close together, it actually works pretty well. My older daylilies around my driveway are like that. Not much gets between daylilies, I spray along edge of driveway, and that is all I have to di where they are thick. Of course, anywhere I have divided and sun gets in there, weeds grow. And you can't put daylilies with lower growing foliage in the middle, which, yes, I have done, thinking tall daylilies means tall foliage :)

Nutsedge is a real problem here and a very difficult one to eradicate. It sprouts up in the middle of daylilies and without digging up the whole daylily to get to all the little "nutlets" hanging off the roots of the sedge, it's almost impossible to eliminate. Here's something you DON'T want to do however. Get frustrated and spray Nutsedge killer in amongst the daylilies. May kill the nutsedge, but does weird things to the daylilies..........Maryl

Maybe we should all forget the daylilies and embrace the weeds LOL !

LOL