How to Rid Your Garden of Weeds

If you want a beautiful garden, you need to get rid of the weeds.

Weeding can be an exhausting process, especially because they just grow back after you remove them.

However, with some pointers and persistence, you can achieve a garden that’s free of weeds.

Though some weed varieties may look pretty and harmless, keep in mind that for the most part, they’re an invasive species. If you don’t remove them, they’ll grow ceaselessly and could suffocate your ornamental plants.

Plants need nutrients and sunlight. If there are invasive species in your garden, they end up competing with your plants to survive.

In today’s post, we’ll talk about how to remove weeds from your garden. There are two main ways to go about it; choose the one that best suits you.

What are weeds?

First things first, in order to begin weeding, we first need to know what weeds are.

Weeds are plants that germinate from seeds that have been carried by birds or the wind.

Furthermore, even though some weeds can be beautiful, like dandelions or poppies, they’re not intentional.

Weeding is fundamental for a lovely, clean garden where plants can grow quickly with no problem.

A fun fact about weeds is that many of them are edible and can be used in salads, omelets, or as an ingredient to jazz up meat dishes.

How can you get rid of weeds from your garden?

There are two main ways to get rid of weeds. The first one is a more natural way that doesn’t use herbicides. The second does use herbicides.

Below, we’ll take a look at both options to help you choose the best one for you.

Natural

Removing herbs naturally has its pros and cons.

One con, for example, is that you’ll have to wait a long time to see results. On the other hand, it’s a lot healthier for your other plants, your pets and for the environment in general because you won´t be using chemicals.

You just have to gather everyday ingredients that are easy to find.

The most popular natural ways to eliminate weeds from your garden are:

• Boiling water: yes, it can be that simple. Just pour boiling water over the weeds and they’ll grow less and less until they start to disappear. But you’ll need to be patient because, with boiling water, miracles don’t happen overnight.
• Vinegar: pour some vinegar into a spray bottle. You can make a 50:50 mix with water or just use the vinegar by itself and spray it onto the weeds.
• Salt: here’s another everyday ingredient that’ll work for weeds. You can use salt directly on the weedy area or you can dissolve it with water in a spray bottle and spray the plants that you want to remove. Take care; if you want to use salt, you have to use it only in the areas where you won’t want plants anymore. Salt leaves soil infertile. You could try using it for the weeds that grow in the cracks between paving stones.
• Baking soda with water: mix the two together and spray it onto weeds.
• Towering plants: lastly, this is the most aesthetic option that’ll really transform your garden. Use plants to help eliminate the weeks in your garden by creating some strong competition to fight over the nutrients, sunlight, and water. By towering over and covering the weeds, the plants will receive the nutrients, light, and water, thus killing off the weeds.

Using herbicides

The second way to eliminate weeds is by using herbicides. The advantage that herbicides have is that they give faster results than non-herbicide options. However, they’ll still require some patience and consistency.

The downside is that using chemicals can affect your other plants or even your pets.

Experts recommend eliminating weeds in two phases:

• First, a preventative phase. If you have a young garden and want to prevent weeds from growing in it, experts recommend using herbicides once a year.
• Second, if your garden already has weeds, you should start the treatment phase. This simply means applying the herbicide directly onto the weedy area.

You should always follow what experts have to say when using herbicides. They’ll explain all of the precautions that you should take in order to avoid any complications.

The most important thing is to maintain a safe distance from your plants to prevent harming them when using herbicides. 

Summary

As we’ve explained in our post, there are two ways to eliminate weeds and both require a lot of patience and perseverance.

We all want a beautiful and healthy garden. So, we need to be wary of weeds and take action to keep our garden from being a messy eyesore.