Perhaps the best definition of a weed is any uninvited plant you find taking over your lawn and flower beds. While they can’t be completely stopped from making a takeover bid on your garden, there are measures you can take to keep the would-be-invaders under control.

Just like your plants, weeds fall into annual and perennial categories. “Know thy enemy” is important here, because recognizing the type of bad guy you’re dealing with will enable you to take effective control measures. Left to their own devices, weeds will soon take over your garden; they’ll greedily gobble up all the moisture and nutrients in the soil leaving your plants to starve and die, so it’s important to prevent them from gaining a foothold. However, weed control doesn’t have to be back-breaking and time-consuming; just ten minutes a week is sufficient to control the weeds in an average garden, and there are a number of simple ways to do it:

Mulch

As we’ve said before, mulch matters. There’s perhaps no better non-chemical weed control agent than mulch. Because both annual and perennial weeds like to take over bare patches of soil, a 1 to 3-inch layer of mulch composed of manure, leaves, bark chippings etc., spread over a black plastic sheet will stop the weeds from taking hold (they can’t germinate under the plastic). When you want to use the area to plant flower seeds, all you have to do is punch a hole in the plastic for the flower to grow.

Weeds in the Borders, Weeds in the Lawn…

Weed reach seedling stage very quickly and a weed seed can survive for years on almost nothing until the right growing conditions are present. Unless you want a flowerbed covered in dandelions and daisies, you’re going to have to come up with a combat strategy. Catch ‘em while they’re young is an excellent policy for combating annual weeds. Pulling up annual weeds in spring means many varieties will miss the growing season and therefore won’t germinate and go to seed; that’s why it’s so important to recognize the weed seedlings from the legitimate plants. However, if the weeds are already there, it’s best to try and pull them out root and all. Like something out of a horror movie, some weeds can grow back from any root fragments left in the soil and it just isn’t possible to dig it all up. If that’s the case, try painting the leaves of your weed with a herbicide gel. It’s better than spraying weed killer, which can damage your plants.

They Just Keep on Comin’

Perennial weeds are very hard to get rid of because they grow from rhizomes buried deep in the soil. They can even grow from bits of rhizome that you didn’t manage to dig up.

A good technique for getting rid of perennial weeds is to weaken them by constantly cutting off their leaves (which prevents them from producing photosynthesis), digging out the roots and then smothering them. By smothering, we mean covering the flower bed with black plastic, like with the mulch technique. And if all else fails, spray them with weed killer.