Fall has arrived, making September and November the perfect window for mulching flower beds to protect plants before the cooler temperatures set in.
As a thin layer of organic matter on the surface, a natural mulch helps retain moisture in the soil, introduces nutrients as it breaks down, and protects from frost when the temperature drops. Although mulching your yard seems easy enough, there’s one common problem many gardeners face afterwards that ruins their hard efforts.
Typically, after a week, unwanted grass blades begin creeping back through your bed cover until the area starts looking untidy again. And while a traditional solution would be to lay down landscaping fabric, this can often make planting new crops tricky and difficult to remove in the long run.
I’ve recently discovered a hassle-free tip to keep unwanted grass out of mulch beds. Not only does this solution work in just one hour, but it’s completely family and pet-friendly without harming nearby plants.
Use a targeted grass and weed killer to protect your beds
A quick trick is to use a grass and weed killer after mulching — but this will only work on young, newly sprouted grass blades coming through the mulch.
Once grass has matured, the spray may not be as effective at getting to work on thick grass — which might benefit from manual tools.
There are several sprays available in your gardening centers or online such as this Spruce Weed & Grass Killer for $35 on Amazon.
This spray kit is formulated from water, essential oils, and a surfactant, and can treat up to 400 weeds. Better still, it promises to work in just an hour, and the reusable bottle means you can simply buy refills instead of a new kit.
Additionally, gardening experts suggest pruning nearby foliage before applying such treatments. Trimming these surrounding stems beforehand allows for a much clearer path to target rogue shoots at their base.
Lastly, it helps to identify the exact location where grass blades keep growing, so you can apply a targeted treatment — ensuring stray growth stays out of your beds for good.
Bear in mind that this solution will only prevent the growth of young weeds and won’t tackle mature ones. If that’s the case, you’ll need to target the weed taproots. And there are plenty of sturdy weeding tools available to save you from doing this back-breaking task.
Of course, if you don’t want to rely on chemicals to get rid of grass and weeds in your yard, you can check out these 7 ways to kill weeds naturally. Or perhaps you might have this 39-cent weed killer alternative hiding in your laundry cupboard?
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