Border Weed Control Best Practices
A beautiful landscape involves more than just having green grass. Well-maintained bushes, shrubbery and flower beds are all appealing features of a great landscape. The technicians at Fit Turf can help you maintain the bed and border areas of your landscape as these areas can be adversely affected by weeds and pests just like your lawn. If you want tackle this job on your own, there are several practices that you should employ to get the best results.
- The first step in border weed control is inspecting the site. If there are already weeds in the flower bed, clear them out before you plant. This may seem obvious but some eager gardeners want to get out right away and begin planting. Look closely in your flower bed or border for weeds and remove them. If your bed or border is relatively small, removing the weeds by hand works very well. Make sure you remove the weeds at the root level. You will not need to use herbicides for these small areas. If you are dealing with a larger area, you can mow the weeds or use a string trimmer to cut the leaves down. After this, you will need to rake or use a rototiller to remove the rest of the weeds. Post emergent herbicides can also be used at this point.
- Check the bed for soil compaction. If the soil is compacted and water infiltrates slowly, this will allow for quick weed growth. Often times, the weeds will grow much faster than your ornamental plants. You should mix compost into the border or bed to improve the soil structure. Typically, about an inch of compost is needed to do the job. The mix should be uniform and between 4 and 8 inches deep.
- Make sure the area where you will be planting ornamentals is level. If level, use lots of water to germinate weed seeds. Weeds produce a lot of seeds and you probably will not get all of them, but get as many as possible. After this, wait a couple of weeks and use a hoe to remove the weeds, but do not dig too deep. The weed elimination process should be much easier at this stage and the removal of weed seeds should reduce the presence of future weeds.
Now you can plant your flower seeds or plant potted flowers into the bed with the knowledge that many weed problems have been erased. By following a routine, you will be able to spend more time planting flowers in your borders and beds and less time on weed removal.