Weeds are a menace to all gardeners and particularly when your time is strictly limited so weed control is vital. We have better things to do than spend all our time weeding. The first task for any gardener establishing a low maintenance garden is to clear the ground of any perennial and annual weeds, and the second is to prevent their re-growth.
Any gardener who plants on land that has not been thoroughly cleared of an infestation of deep-rooted weeds will regret their idleness. A clean start before new planting is a must. This is hard work but necessary. Dig over the plot to a depth of around 12 inches, loosen the soil, and remove the tough weed roots. Use a Cornish shovel or a fork to sift through the soil. You must remove every scrap of plant root that you see because any fragments left behind will be a source of new weed growth, especially since these scraps of root will benefit from the soil being newly dug.
If you do not have time to do this yourself, hire someone who is completely trustworthy. If this job is done quickly and carelessly it will do more harm than good. As a safeguard, before digging up the roots, it is a good idea is to spray the ground with a total weedkiller (glyphosate) and allow its action to take effect before digging starts. This will reduce the likelihood of weed re-infestation through carelessness.
Removing the existing weeds is part of the weed control process but fresh weed seeds are all around and they will inevitably arrive in your garden. No matter how thoroughly you have cleared the ground birds, wind, pets and people will introduce new seed and contaminate your borders and beds. You must take preventative action and create conditions that make it difficult for such weed seeds to germinate and grow.
There are several ways to do this. You can cover part of the garden with a hard surface e.g. slabs or gravel. Another method is to crush-plant perennials so that any weed seeds are denied light. Packing in as many plants as possible will produce foliage that provides complete ground cover and suppresses weed growth. You can cover areas of exposed soil with a thick blanket of mulch. Apart from suppressing weeds, or making their removal easy, mulches benefit the plants they surround by allowing moisture to penetrate the soil while limiting its evaporation by providing a barrier between the soil and the air.
Despite your best efforts to control weeds a few will survive and will have to be weeded out manually or dealt with using a chemical weedkiller. There are different types of weedkiller that act on the plant foliage. There is also a type of weedkiller, known as pre-emergent, that acts on bare ground, suppressing any weeds that attempt to break through the surface of the soil.
If you follow these simple weed control steps you will successfully clear your garden of weeds and keep it weed free with the minimum of maintenance.
William has been writing articles for several years now especially articles related to the home and home improvements. You can check out his latest website at http://www.selfstoragenottingham.com/ which is a guide to finding and using self storage in Nottingham.
