Garden

[Sweetbay magnolia]

I hoe, and pull.  Learning to recognize the various culprits and how fast they grow and spread, helps me to prioritize the immediacy.

I also don't mind if things are a little weedy.  My garden aesthetic is very natural.  Beneficial insects and butterflies and birds don't care.  It all contributes to biodiversity.  In some areas of heavy perennial cover I let them grow intentionally - helps to keep the slugs from munching my cultivated plants.

Every day I spend a little time pulling weeds.  Walking to the mailbox?  Pull a weed or two.

Re-forming my expectations of what my garden will be has caused much less frustration for me.  I let dandelions and white clover grow in the lawn.

Add:  though I use a light top dressing of VA Fines in some of the more defined bed areas, I also let the leaves fall and cover the soil. They stay and decay.  If an excessive amont builds up, I rake it out in the Spring.  That goes to the compost heaps.

[Mom2Dogs]

@flickerbulb.....we have our front yard professionally landscaped, the last time it was done the company put down a heavy plastic first then the mulch.  As the plants and large shrubs grew the black plastic did not lay flat any longer, it was a huge eyesore.

Several years ago I was a local nursery and they told me NOT to use plastic or the  weed cloth....they said it is better for the mulch to decompose ontop of the ground.  They also advised that every few years all mulch should come up and new put down.

[flickerbulb]

@Mom2Dogs

I am also a doggie mommie to three tail waggers! Not one of them helped me with pulling the mulch up!

Here in S, FL, the mulch fades and gets nasty and I am lucky to get a year out of it before I have to tear it out and put down fresh.

I have used gold, and last year tried all brown, but went back to red. This front bed was sooooo weedy this time. Once I was done it was hard to believe that is what it is supposed to look like.

I would pay someone to do it, but most of the landscapers make a face and seem like it would be an inconvenience. So, I trudge out there and do it myself!

[Mom2Dogs]

@flickerbulb...my front landscape takes 40+bags, no way would I tear out and replace every year....I do rake it really well every year, (and throughout the summer)  and turn over the mulch,  sometimes it looks like new!   I might have to buy a few bags to fill in from high wind taking some mulch.

Mine fades as well but probably not near as bad as yours...

[Carmie]

I do the old fashioned weeding in my vegetable garden and won't use mulch with chemicals on my food.

i use cardboard in my flower beds.  I flatten cardboard boxes and lay them down flat, then I use my hose to really soak them down with water.

On top of the cardboard, I put my mulch.  I used to use newspapers and that works too, but cardboard is the best.  This is the best way to control weeds that I have found.

plastic and black garden mesh never worked well for me.