Seeking Fower Garden Advice

Hi AlleyCat and welcome to the always interesting world of gardening. I've gardened in zone 7 (do you live in the south?) and thing do love to grow there--including weeds.

There are a few thing you can do to mitigate a weedy garden:

1. Edging your beds with a deep trench will help stop grass and weeds from traveling from your lawn or other areas into your flower beds (when roots traveling through the soil hit the air, they stop)

2. Not over-tilling your soil will help stop new weeds from sprouting; tilling brings seeds deep in the soil to the surface where they can do their thing, and it opens up the soil making it easier for existing weeds to extend their roots systems deep and wide.

3. Mulching with not more than 2-inches of well aged shredded bark will absolutely suppress weeds which need sunlight and should be applied at least once, if not twice a season. Don't over mulch (more is not better) and be sure to pull any mulch away from the base and main stem of your plant by several inches; mulch up against a plant can inhibit air circulation and cause rot.

Before you apply mulch you might consider installing a simple, inexpensive (really easy, I promise) drip irrigation system so your plants get the water they need at the right amount and during the early morning hours. A drip kit is about 50.00 and a great investment. Install, set the time, be done with it.

All of this said, you will alway be weeding your garden; and it's not a bad thing. Weeds mean you've created a seductive environment where things WANT to grow. I just grab a coffee on a Sunday morning and plan on a hour out there. Remember a farmer always walks his land; as a gardener you need to do the same. Weeding helps you to better tend your garden overall, and you get to buy awesome gloves and little tools!

Hope this helps.

Weeding is a part of gardening!! Mulch will help keep weeds down, and it looks nice too. Your plants will like it. Be sure to use a weed-free mulch. It will also reduce the need for water in case you need to water often (like I do). However, you do have to be diligent about weeds because over time some probably will still pop up through the mulch. If you go out once a week to weed, that should help a lot. I don't know what kind of weeds you have, but if they develop seeds, it's important to get them right away so the seeds cannot sprout. If they spread underground, use a hand trowel to get as much as possible. Over time, you will see a reduction in weeds. Good luck, have fun gardening. It's work, but so rewarding.

PS Another way of weeding is with a hoe, regular kind or the one with a square loop in the end. Just whack them off at the "neck." But if they have seeds, pull them. Sometimes I even just scuff small weeds with my foot.

Hi....I'm in NY but this ground covering works everywhere.....website Gardeners Supply (located in New England area) has a weed control paper, which I bought and tried last year, around my cherry tomatoes in my raised garden because I tired of a ground vine that I fight every year.

It's a roll of recycled paper (light tan color) that you put down in your garden, tear a round section (kind of tricky to do) hole in the paper and plant your flowers through the hole - then spread soil OVER the paper. The neat thing is - when you clean up your garden after the growing season, the paper is no more! Because of rain over the months, the paper just melts into the soil - compose sort of thing.

It's a large roll - length wise - not round wise - choice of 25 ft or 50 ft rolls - don't recall exact 2 sizes - mine was around $25 per roll - and I think Amazon carries it too. Perhaps you'd get free shipping there - check it out.

Look for Weed Control paper - type products

Landscape fabric has its uses (for vegetable gardens). In regular flower gardens, eventually the soil with the weed seeds gets through because the landscape fabric tears over time.

What gardensla wrote is good advice.. Some of the mulch is insect resistant (like cedar mulch) and some of it is aromatic (pine and chocolate mulch come to mind) No chocolate mulch if you have dogs that roam your garden as chocolate is harmful to dogs if eaten.

Mulch also serves another purpose-- it keeps soil temperature even and in the winter, it helps perennials from heaving out of the ground with the freeze/thaw cycles that occur.

You will have to replenish mulch in the sunnier parts of your garden sooner than in the shadier areas. That mulch breaks down and feeds your plants too as it deteriorates.

The larger the pieces of mulch-- pine bark nuggets vs. pine mulch, the longer it takes to break down.

I am not a fan of the colored or dyed mulches. To me, it screams commercial property. I prefer the natural wood colored mulch. The dyes eventually wash out into the soil over time. Not sure if the dyes are food coloring dyes or something that is harmful. I do not buy it for my property.

Thank you all so much for the tips. Do I need to till the soil every year? I have bulbs in the ground currently so I wouldn't want to till them would I? My flower bed is built up about 3 inches with a stacked brick border surrounding it. I did put mulch on it this past year but probably not enough. I think it might have been only and inch. Will covering the bed now with mulch prevent my bulbs from growing?

On 2/5/2015 AlleyCat said:

Thank you all so much for the tips. Do I need to till the soil every year? I have bulbs in the ground currently so I wouldn't want to till them would I? My flower bed is built up about 3 inches with a stacked brick border surrounding it. I did put mulch on it this past year but probably not enough. I think it might have been only and inch. Will covering the bed now with mulch prevent my bulbs from growing?

No need to till the soil except when planting something into the ground. Tilling the soil too early (like in the wet spring as the ground is becoming less frozen can destroy or damage the natural structure of the soil. No need to put mulch down now (snow on the ground probably right?) But in warmer areas like VA and further S & W, you could apply mulch now, The bulbs do come up through mulch. Right now before we had the heavy snow here, I saw some hyacinths and some little tiny parts of some daffodils I have in spots in my garden emerging. Remember these bulbs are about 4-8" deep in your soil so they are actively growing beneath the soil now.

ETA: tilling the soil also encourages more weed seeds to germinate too. You only need to till the soil or turn it over when planting new plant material into the soil. If I was planting a brand new bed here, I would first do a pH test of random spots in that soil, add lime if needed (we have acidic soils by us) and then plant the plants and finally then add the mulch around each plant.