Maintaining a vibrant and flourishing garden not only means looking after your plants and lawn, but it’s also about effectively managing the nemesis of almost every commercial or domestic gardener – weeds.
Weeds, if not controlled, can quickly take over your garden and compete for valuable nutrients, moisture and space, so it is essential to put in place various solutions before the problem gets out of hand.
In this article, we look at 5 effective weed control methods that any gardener can use to help keep weeds at bay and allow their garden to thrive and keep looking great all year round.
Like many things in life, with weed control, prevention is far better (and a lot easier) than the cure, and a thoughtfully designed garden with weed control in mind is a great way to prevent unmanageable weed infestations.
There are various garden design elements you could use for weed suppression, including:
As mentioned in the introduction, when weeds infest, they fight for nutrients and space, so one way to counteract this attack is to beat them at their own game using a range of attractive ground cover plants. Some ground cover plants you could try include:
Thymus Serpyllum: This ground cover plant will survive in hot dry conditions, and in the summer months create a gorgeous mat of leaves with fragrant pink flowers.
Flowering Heather: A mixture of flowering and colourful heather is a highly effective plant to use for ground cover to suppress weeds, especially if your garden is in full sun
Campanula Carpatica: For a reliable ground cover plant for weed suppression, the Campanula Carpatica provides a sumptuous carpet of star-shaped blue and violet flowers.
Another garden design consideration is making sure you give plants adequate space between them. This allows them to thrive on the nutrients and water provided, grow strong and outcompete and shade out any potential weed infestations.
In a slight contradiction to spacing plants adequately, companion planting is the method of planting certain types of ‘companion plants’, such as clover or marigolds close together to create a natural defence against weeds.
Mulching is a highly effective method of keeping weeds at bay. It involves applying a layer of organic mulch, such as straw, compost or wood chips, to act as a physical barrier to prevent weeds from gaining sunlight and thriving.
Organic mulch is also great at keeping moisture in the soil and regulating the temperature, both of which help to keep the soil in good condition, to aid the growth of your plants, particularly those planted to suppress weeds.
One of the most crucial jobs for weed control is constant monitoring and hand-pulling. This means a weekly or even a daily check for single weeds, or the beginnings of a weed infestation.
When you see a weed, simply tug it out quickly, making sure to pull it with the root, and dispose of it in the garden waste bin, and not the compost bin, as the seeds will simply regerminate and cause more problems in the future.
If you have quite a large garden, make sure to cultivate and hoe the soil regularly. To do this effectively involves using a hoe or a garden fork to break up the soil around your plants to disrupt any potential weed growth. Hoeing and cultivating like this is particularly effective for dealing with annual weeds with shallow root systems, and it’s also a great way to aerate the soil, which enables it to absorb nutrients and water more easily.
When the above methods aren’t enough, as a last resort you always have the option of using certain herbicides, as long as you use them with extreme caution, and only according to any instructions provided. Also, when using herbicides consider any potential impact on the surrounding environment, the soil and wildlife, and when applying a herbicide, be extra careful not to allow it to come into contact with other plants or shrubs etc.
If you’re looking for professional weed control, garden maintenance, or other garden services, contact us at Culverhouse Gardens, a family-run professional gardening maintenance and landscaping service, covering Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Hertfordshire.
Posted by Culverhouse Gardens
