Soon our rainy season will be over and weed season will be upon us.
As the ground warms up, billions of seeds will wake up and grow into all those familiar weeds that we know and hate. Most gardeners get tired of weeding after 20 or 30 hours, so any shortcut to a weed-free garden is welcome.
The satisfaction of looking over a freshly weeded garden (or lawn) is diminished by the knowledge that you’ll have to do it all over again in a week or two. Herbicides can damage non-target plants and should not be your first choice for weed elimination. Goats and sheep are fun to watch, but totally impractical for the average homeowner. Unfortunately, the best way to remove weeds is to pull them out by the roots. Fortunately, there is a way to make maintenance much easier that is simple and environmentally friendly.
Weed cloth has been marketed as an easy and effective way to block weeds in planter beds. Initially, this is true. The weed cloth, when placed over weed-free soil, will block sunlight from reaching the emerging weed seedlings, killing them. Usually, the weed cloth gets covered with mulch and everything looks pretty – for a while.
If the mulch is organic (bark chips or compost), weed seeds can end up germinating on top of the fabric, sending roots right through the weed cloth. This makes the weeding process much worse since the fabric ends up getting torn and pulled up through the mulch. Pretty soon you have ugly tufts of torn weed cloth all through the garden in addition to a bunch of weeds. Eventually, you’ll rake all the mulch aside, rip out the weed cloth, and toss it in the trash.
Now, don’t even think about buying plastic sheeting!
Is there a way to minimize a weed problem without hours of back-breaking work? Veteran gardeners have a saying: “If you have weeds, you don’t have enough plants.” Filling up empty spaces in the garden can keep weeds from getting out of hand. Ground cover plants, low-growing perennials, and ornamental grasses will leave little room for weeds.
If the idea of smothering weeds with plastic sheeting or weed cloth is still appealing, you could use corrugated cardboard under a thick layer of bark mulch. The cardboard will eventually break down, weeds will be kept at bay, and you’ll have found a use for all those Amazon boxes.
If your existing plants are already too close together to make the cardboard solution unfeasible, spreading several thick layers of grass clippings will form a tight mat that effectively suppresses weeds. We use this method in our vegetable garden since it works well around young plants, but it can work under bark mulch as well.
Do not do this if you’ve treated the grass with any kind of herbicide such as “Weed and Feed”. We learned this lesson the hard way when we inadvertently killed all of our baby eggplants.
Los Angeles County
mglosangeleshelpline@ucdavis.edu; 626-586-1988; http://celosangeles.ucanr.edu/UC_Master_Gardener_Program/
Orange County
ucceocmghotline@ucanr.edu; http://mgorange.ucanr.edu/
Riverside County
anrmgriverside@ucanr.edu; https://ucanr.edu/sites/RiversideMG/
San Bernardino County
mgsanbern@ucanr.edu; 909-387-2182; http://mgsb.ucanr.edu
