Every garden’s worst nightmare: weeds. Left unchecked, they take over your entire garden. The good news? With the right knowledge, you can easily eliminate these unwanted invaders. Remember, a luxurious garden doesn’t just happen by accident, but through hard work, consistency and staying on top of those pesky weeds, you too can have a garden to be proud of. Follow along with this complete guide as we show you how to remove weeds effectively and prevent them from ever coming back.
Get Rid Of Existing Weeds
Weeds are more than just an eyesore that is annoying to deal with. They compete with the plants in your garden for water, nutrients and sunlight, weakening the plants and lawn you want to thrive. There are many different ways you can choose to deal with them, some more short-term fixes or long-term plans. In the short term, you just want to get rid of them to make your garden look much more beautiful to look at.
Rip Them Up
The easiest way of dealing with weeds is to just go right ahead and rip them up. You can tackle this in a number of different ways. Pull them out by hand, dig them up using a trowel and/or fork, or you could use a weed wacker if there are far too many for you to deal with in one go. All have the same aim of just getting rid of the top of the weed, so you no longer have the annoyance of looking at them. You’re better off attempting to pull them up after it’s rained, so the soil is softened to make your life a lot easier.
Try A Hoe
If removing weeds is a little time-consuming or you have a bigger patch to clear, have a go at hoeing. It works great on vegetable gardens and flower beds. You get the hoe right under that top layer of surface soil and slice the weeds off at its roots. It’s super quick and time-efficient. If you do it on a dry sunny day, peak summer, the roots can stay in the ground, left to dry out and die.
Stop Them Growing In The Future
A lot of the methods above are great for getting rid of weeds there and then. They’re quick, accessible and cheap to do; you can get those weeds gone in an instant. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Well, not really. See, even if you think you’ve removed the plant, weed roots can end up going quite deep into the soil, so often you won’t have gotten all the plant, and you’ll inevitably end up with them growing back. There are, however, some more permanent solutions to your weed conundrum that can get rid of them once and for all.
Attempt Mulching
Once you’ve pulled up all the weeds you can so your garden, lawn or flower bed looks luscious, now is the time you want to consider mulching. Mulch normally is something you can put on top of plants or flowerbeds to cover the soil surrounding plants you want to protect. It’s made of bark, compost or even straw and works to block out sunlight to unwanted weeds as well as stopping any weed seeds from germinating. It’s a great long-term solution that helps to improve the quality of your soil but can be a lot of effort to maintain. Plus, as you can see from above, you’ll still have to deal with any existing weeds another way.
Prevent Seeding
When your weeds flower then end up producing seeds, hundreds or thousands of them. They get swept up by the wind and end up all over your garden – resulting in more weeds everywhere. The most common garden weeds, like dandelions, spread like this.
One of the most effective ways of controlling weeds is stopping them from ever being able to seed. The key is to get rid of any weeds you see before they flower. Not only would the seeds not have formed yet, but their roots won’t be as deep, and they’re younger plants, so they’re much easier to pull out of the ground. It can be harder to spot weeds without their flowers but it’s worth making the effort so you won’t be working quite as hard to eliminate them in the future.
If you do end up missing some and they flower, then don‘t panic; you can still minimize the damage. Any weeds with flowers you find, cut off the heads ASAP. Then you should work to remove the whole plant. Whatever you do, don’t compost them. Put them straight in your normal trash otherwise some seeds could survive and still end up spreading around your garden.
Use Natural Weed Killers
Most people want to avoid using synthetic chemicals in their garden as much as they can. They’re bad for the environment. They contaminate water, harming aquatic life, can lower the soil quality, killing off beneficial micro-organisms and can even pose a threat to our own health. That doesn’t mean you have to avoid herbicides altogether.
Using herbicides as a weed control method can be extremely efficient, especially if you’ve got a large space to clear or your garden is particularly overrun. Boiling water is a great, cheap yet surprisingly effective method for getting rid of annoying plant pests. The heat of the water breaks down the plant’s cells, and over a day or so, you’ll see the plant wilt and wither away. The downside is you need to be careful withthe plants you want to keep, or they’ll end up going the same way as the weeds.
Another great, environmentally-friendly way to get rid of weeds is to use vinegar spray. White vinegar is a bit of a miracle worker when it comes to cleaning and gardening. You only need a strength of 10-15% for it to work wonders. Spray at the base of each plant you want rid of and let the magic unfold.
Weeds might be inevitable but they can very much be beaten. The key is to stay proactive. By removing them early, stopping them spreading and staying on top of soil health you can end up with a thriving, weed-free garden to be proud of.
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