3 Tips For Controlling Those Pesky Weeds In Your Flower Garden

by Jenny Banks

Weeds seem to pop up everywhere and in some cases grow much better than the flowers. Pulling them out seems futile when you come out the next day to find even more. Weeds can cause damage to a flower garden because they steel moisture from the plants. If you use fertilizer for your flowers, the weeds also steel nutrients from them. One of the best ways to keep weeds away is to keep an eye on your garden. Pluck out each weed that you see while it is still young and hasn't had time to make a lot of roots yet. Even though you can never kill all weeds, there are other things you can do to keep them under control, including the three ways below,

Use Mulch

Mulch is the number one way to keep weeds away. Put two to three inches of mulch in your flower garden. Push the mulch away from the base of each flower so you do not suffocate them. With the mulch on the ground the weeds cannot get any sun which means they will die. Mulch is beneficial for your flowers, however, as it holds in moisture.

You can use organic mulch instead of buying mulch at a garden center. For example, you can use grass cuttings and chopped up leaves as a mulch. This will also nourish the soil as natural mulch slowly decomposes.  Other types of organic mulch include pine needles, wheat straw, and pine bark.

If you do see a stray weed pop through, it will be easy to pull because it likely does not have a strong root.

Use Newspaper

If you do not want to use mulch or do not have it readily available to you, you can use newspaper as an alternative. Newspaper will not nourish the soil but it will keep weeds away in the same way that mulch does. Put down five or six layers of newspaper between your flowers, and then cover the newspaper with a thin covering of soil to hold the newspaper down.

Make Your Own Weed Killer

If you still continue to have problems with weeds, you can use weed killer. Instead of purchasing a chemical weed killer at a garden center, you can make your own instead. You only need two ingredients: vinegar and liquid dish soap.

Vinegar has acetic acid which sucks water from the weed to dry it up. The dish soap breaks down the outer coating of the weed. This helps the vinegar do its job even better.

Purchase one gallon of white distilled vinegar with at least five percent acetic acid. Put the vinegar in a bucket and add two ounces of dish soap. Any kind of dish soap will work fine. Mix the two ingredients thoroughly and put into a spray bottle.  Spray the weeds liberally with the solution.

Only spray the weeds as this weed killer may harm or even kill your flowers. Apply only on a sunny day. The sun will help the weed killer dry out the weeds faster. You do not want to spray the flowers on a windy day so the weed killer does not accidentally spray onto other flowers when you spray it.

If you continue to have problems or need help, contact a landscaper in your area. Contact a business, such as Snyder's Weed Control, for more information.   

Share