What is the fastest and easiest way of clearing an overgrown small garden of persistent weeds?

Question

It is only about 3m x 3m square, but has been full of persistent weeds for years.

Answer 1

Apart from a helicopter spraying Napalm? your best bet is Roundup or Tumbleweed, it will kill everything.

Answer 2

What a dinky garden!
As it's so small, I'd dig the weeds out one by one with a fork and a little patient hard work. That said it depends on the weeds. You'll have little joy digging out Horse Tails (equisetum) or Japanese knot weed, but you will have some success with bindweed as long as you get as much out as possible and don't leave any little bits behind. Most other perennial weeds wont return if you dig out the roots.

That said, you will have a lot of weed seeds that are dormant in the soil. These will have to be removed annually or mulched over with a good few inches of manure, composted bark etc.

Whatever you do, don't rotivate a garden with any weeds in it like bindweed that will grow from even the tiniest bit of root. You will effectively create thousands of little plants from the chopped up bits.

After you've weeded the lot and dug it over you have a few options. You can either:
Mulch over the lot with 3 - 6 inches of manure or composted bark etc and weed off anything that comes through.
Or. Don't mulch and weed out even more weeds than with a mulch.
Or. Mulch and spray off anything that comes through with a systemic herbicide (this will NOT remain in the soil). This is by far and away the most effective choice.
Or. Don't mulch and spray everything that comes through with a systemic herbicide.
It's up to you really. If you want to be ultra green, then don't spray. If you aren't that hard-line then weed and spray emerging seedlings.
If you love chemicals, spray the lot and don't dig a thing.

Hope you find a solution that suits your way of thinking and enjoy a lovely garden in the near future.

If you plant it up with a good ground cover plant that will shade out the weeds, that will help too.

Answer 3

Lots of good answers. "Ronald" is the closest to what I have done. There is at least one more alternative. Mow the area and remove as much of the debris as you can. You can find and mark any plants you wish to save and hand weed about a foot around each one. If you plan on putting plants in this area, use "Preen" or another suitable pre-emergant (Prevents seeds from germinating) according to the label. If you intend on seeding the area with grass, vegetables, flowers or anything else don't use Preen. Then cover the area with a suitable tarp. I have used rolls of black plastic, and old camping tarps (both plastic and canvas), Anchor the tarp in place but do not fully cover. Let the sun do the work of cooking and killing the weeds for at least 2 weeks. Then till as needed. One of the best though is newspapers. put 4 or 5 layers down, then cover with compost, lawn clippings, leaves, bark, fine wood chips, peat moss, and/or good topsoil. After about a month, till everything under. Paper and all. Because of weed seeds and roots, I like to till several times over about a month starting in the very early spring. Once I have plants in, I use Preen in those rows. Once seeds have germinated and grown several inches, I use Preen in those rows. Between the rows I use Round-up very carefully, or till.

Answer 4

to rid your garden of persistant weeds takes time and may not be easy. But you can try covering with black plastic,leaving it for months before removal. Best is to dig and hand remove EVERY bit of root. Then mulch with a soil improver from your recycling depot at least 4inches deep. It`ll smother any weeds that remain.

Answer 5

Get some black garden plastic (with holes in it) and some scissors. Lay it around the bed, cut holes for the plants, lay a thick layer of dirt or mulch or whatever you like on top. Be sure you work around all the edges to keep all the weds under the plastic. They will decompose and be gone presto!

Answer 6

You should clear it out and dig down about six inches. Lay out some plastic (heavy duty) with precision that you can probably get at some gardening store and bury. Cover the plastic with dirt. If you do planting (I find neutral healthy dirt to be visually pleasing), then you have to cut a hole in the plastic before you dig a hole.

Answer 7

What are you planning on planting? Use weed control fabric and follow instructions.

Answer 8

totally clear all plants from it, so their is only soil, lay some black hessian all over and leave it,after one year you should of killed totally all that was their before

Answer 9

hire a rotivator for 5 minutes

Answer 10

Try and borrow a goat, they will eat just about anything.