Rick, I have stepping stones in my garden, and if you lift one up, you see worms.

RickCorey said:

...Maybe that would be waste of effort since, I suppose, water, worms and roots can just go around the stepping-stone-zone.

Plus, those areas under the stones are always moist. Good areas for roots to go. Only problem with that is...thistle roots like to go there too!

Wow, I assumed it would be dense-packed and hard as a rock. I guess I'll try it.

>> .thistle roots like to go there too!

The weeds are always thickest in my raised beds around the edges, where the paving stones make it hard to chop weeds. I find that the scuffle hoe is my go-to weeder, but it can't always get all the way to the edge of the bed.

And where I've amended the soil, I can hand-pull most weeds out with a lot of root. But right at the edges, it seems like the concrete gives them something to hang on to and I only get stem, not root.

I have to lean the paver away from the bed, pull that one weed, put the paver back in place, and then lean the next paver out. I keep thinking about bringing a long knife for edging, maybe a serrated knife, but I keep forgetting.

Gee, I seem to mostly take pictures of beds right AFTER giving them the very best weeding I ever do.

You know, when there are persistent weeds like thistles and when I know the roots are long, I take an old bread knife - the long one with serrated edges - and stab it (angled inward toward the root) into the ground all around the weed. The weed lifts right out; shake the soil loose and get rid of the weed. Seems to work pretty well for me, if I get it before the weed sets seed.

Works on dandelions in the daylily bed too.

Bread knives seem to be a go-to tool for many gardeners. I'm surprised a tool company has not jumped on that and created one in the fashion of a garden tool (better grip, hangy loop).

And maybe less bendable, too.

With a pointy end to get things started. Sharon, we may be on to something here, if only we knew how to make it happen!

After my son planted yellow clover as a green manure, My flower rows were loaded with seedlings the following year. I tried my best to get them before they got too big but several got really big and the only way to get them ot was to cut them off at ground level before they set seed. As long as I cut them just below ground level they didn't grow back and like Sharon said, the roots rot and add organic matter to the soil.

Sine we're talking about weeds taking over a bed and how to handle it, does anyone have any suggestions fôr one taken over with red sorrell, or sour grass, as my mother calls it? I was thinking about removing all the flowers and trying to dig it out, then replant, but tht's a lot of work and I'm not confident it will take care of the problem. I prefer NOT to use RU!

>> I prefer NOT to use RU!

Arlene, is it just RoundUp that you're down on? There are many older, traditional herbicides, but they tend to be more toxic or more persistent, or both. So I would expect them to be at least as hard on the flowers surrounded by red sorrel as RU.

Here are some suggestions from NC University, but RoundUp (glyphosate) is high on their list:
http://www.turffiles.ncsu.edu/...

Are the flowers spaced far enough apart that a weed torch could be used to knock back a lot of the red sorrel?

Rick, you're a genius! A weed torch! of course!!!! As long as I don't burn down the house. The bed is next to the back of the house, I'd better keep a hose ready nearby. but do you think it will actually kill it? It's one of those, even leaving a little piece of root will come back again.

The only other thing I can think of is to dig out as much as I can and just keep at it. It doesn't help that I haven't been able to get to weed this bed all summer. But I have been trying to keep it from going to seed. It seems to send off little spores!

abhege,
I hand pulled all the sorrel in my daughter's back yard. Each time it rained I would go out there as soon as the rain stopped and while the ground was wet and hand pull each one. It must have worked because this year there are none.

Next I will work on the goose grass. I only tackle one type of weed at a time.

Using a weed torch is only effective on annual weeds. Anything perennial will just come back, and fairly quickly at that. We just went through that trying to clean up my dear departed doggie's kennel. We torched everything. Then when it cooled off, we sprayed it with Roundup. Still got thistles and perennial grasses coming up. So we sprayed it again. Most of it is dead now, but there are still a few isolated spots that will require work. But the torch definitely gets rid of a lot of the upper growth (we had weeds that were 3 to 4 ft tall!).

>> keep it from going to seed.

I failed to do that once, and those have been everywhere ever since. It's so worth doing!

What I do know is use a scuffle hoe as often as I have time. I figure I can scuffle a patch around 10-20 times instead of digging out the roots of 60-70% of the weeds just once. So I do what I have time and energy for: scuffle-hoe that bed 5-6 times per season.

I might not win the battle in the ssense of "the invaders were driven back into the sea", but I did prevent them from taking over my yard and pushing my plants and I into the sea!

>> even leaving a little piece of root will come back again.

Yeah, but at least it is a setback for the weed and some relief for your flowers .
Maybe a torch plus thick coarse mulch will set them back even more.

Maybe a torch plus mulch plus occasional yanking of the weeds you couldn't torch would set them back even more.

I've read a few people sayign that they did this several times per year for several years. Their reasoning was that if the weed spent all it's energy trying to get a few leaves above ground to catch sunlight, eventually the roots would run out of energy.

I think it's always competition: Nature abhors a vacuumn, and fertile soil that isn't filled with roots and covered with foliage IS a vacuum.

I think it's too much to hope that flowers will out-compete weeds. If they coluld, we would call those flowers "weeds"! Is there any kind of low-lying plant or ground cover that would not harass your flowers as much as the weeds do, but still compete with weeds? I'm thinking of alyssum, creeping thyme, sedum ... like that. maybe a Fall Rye or winter cover crop to grow while the flowers are dormant.

Of course, if the flowers are annuals, you can plow, screen, irradiate, poison or cook the soil after the flowers are gone. But if they are perennial flowers - I just don't know.

I had to give up on one bed where I thought "Duhh, Perennials sound easy, I'll plant some here!" The weeds choked them out so much that I hardly found any left when I dug out that whole bed and screened the roots.

Good Luck!

I may try a bit of torching, digging, moving plants. They're all perennials, some red sage, caryopteris shrubs, daylilies, oriental lilies, mums, echinacea, geum. Stuff like that. I do have a low growing veronica at the edge but obviously it didn't keep the sorrell out! Maybe it's just too dainty.

I'm redoing my front bed and I think I may use some of the plants in the back up there so at least I would have some place to move them to.

Usually I do the same, attacking as much as I can to keep the weeds at least a bit under control since I'll most likely never get rid of them but this year has been awful for me as far as doing anything at my house. All my attention has been at the farm. Oh well, in a few years the kids won't need grandma to babysit and I won't be doing farmer's market so I will have more time for my beds!

Hmmm...here's a different tactic that worked for me. I won't take credit for any great idea--it was a fluke of nature. We got 8" of rain in just a few days this August. In fact, I think we got something like 17" in 15 days. At first, the weeds grew like crazy! But so did the daylilies.....and then when it kept on raining, the weeds drowned! They were so easy to pull at this point, that I moved through some huge beds in record time.
If you can really really flood the flower bed--set up a dam around it--the daylilies won't mind a bit, but the weeds will be weakened enough that I think you can pull them and remove the complete root. I was pulling out some monster roots on mine, because they were used to dry soil and had gone deeeep. I even pulled out clumps of grass! Prairie grass!
The shuffle hoe works great on small weeds and dry soil, and Preen is good once you've finished the weeding. Mulch is wonderful, but it's hard work, and we have to add it twice a year. I pull it away from the crown of the daylily in the spring and push it back in the fall.
I like what others suggested about tackling a small area each day. It might be easier to let a hose run on a small area as you work, too.

Now, if I could just find an easy and permanent solution to all the elm seedlings that invade my iris beds! Tordon hasn't worked!

That is a great idea Cindy!

May I say that your pics of weedy beds look pretty good to me! I know weedy beds...I agree that lots of coarse mulch is the way to go. I am also trying weed barrier cloth this year and it is good too for areas you can't mulch, or if you run out. Yes, digging out the roots of thistle, cockleburrs and similar weeds is the best way, but if you are starting with a formidable giant plant, you can use branch loppers. I have some really good ones from Corona that will easily cut branches etc.

And some of my weeds have required the branch loppers!

CindiKS: I was thinking the same thing. To just set up a sprinkler and let it soak that hill for about 12 hours. It will be muddy work to pull the big ones out but I plan on wearing boots, jeans and a t shirt (along with some heavy duty gloves for those awful, evil, hurtful thistles. Every time I pull into the driveway I get so discouraged because it looks so awful. But it has been 90+ degrees with high humidity and I am waiting for a cool spell. It looks like Labor Day is going to be a lot cooler here in southern Wisconsin. I guess it really will be LABOR DAY for me! I will keep you all posted.

This round I am going to pull up all the weeds that I can. Or lop them off if necessary. My next step is to go to the city lot and get truckloads of mulch. I think I will just have my husband dump it in the bottom of the ditch and I can work on it a bit at a time once I get the majority removed.

Thank you SO much for all your wonderful ideas and support!