Landscaping Basics: Weeds and Mulch

For some people, the unpredictable aspect of nature is hard to cope with. If you are a control freak, gardening is probably a difficult hobby to enjoy. Outdoors we are only in control of very few things, like choice of plants and landscaping materials. As for the rest (weather, bugs, animals, plant diseases) we just have to hope that things work out in our favor.

One of the biggest irritations for gardeners is weeds. If you have gone to all the trouble of preparing your garden beds and selecting and caring for beautiful plants, the last thing you want are uninvited guests stealing the precious resources you need for your plants.

Today’s post is about weeds and suggestions for keeping them under control.

Identifying Weeds

“[T]he term “weed” has no scientific meaning and encompasses a broad concept, generally that some human prejudice is necessary to call a plant a weed.”

“A Summary of Noxious Weed Laws in the Continental U.S.,” written by Dr. Jean Wooten, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, and Ms. Sarah Wilkerson, Ms. Katherine Hinson, and Dr. Michael Grodowitz of the Aquatic Ecology Branch, Environmental Laboratory, U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station, Vicksburg, MS.

I am still learning how to identify weeds in my garden. There are so many different kinds of weeds and some are kind of pretty. Plants get called weeds for a variety of reasons, including: they smell bad (Tree-of-Heaven), they are hosts for insects or other pests that destroy crops, they hybridize with existing crops to produce new species that are worthless for food, they destroy native species and they outcompete all other species.

Some weeds are so bothersome, they are on a sort of “Most Wanted” list by the federal government and/or individual states! You can view the “noxious weeds” listing for the U.S. and your state at the USDA website here.

In Virginia, in addition to the federal listing, two weeds are deemed “noxious”: purple loosestrife and European wand loosestrife. Both of these plants are quite pretty but restrictions exist on the importation of any further plants of this nature or the movement of these plants between states because the USDA indicates they form “dense, monospecific stands that can grow to thousands of acres in size, displacing native, sometimes rare, plant species and eliminating open water habitat.”  You can see a picture on this page of a field full of nothing but loosestrife.

If you are out digging in your garden and you are not sure if something is a weed or not, you might check the website for your local agricultural college. In Virginia, Virginia Tech has a detailed weeds website with pictures and information.

Eliminating Weeds

Once you know which plants are weeds and which are not, how do you get rid of the weeds? This is not easy and there is generally so sure-fire one-time fix for weeds. A dutiful gardener will probably be continuously weeding. Some strategies that help?

1. Encourage vigorous growth of whatever plants you want to have in your garden.
2. Put down weed-blocking fabrics or mulch when you plant.
3. Pull out weeds by hand if there are not too many.
4. Use a natural weed killer. Martha Stewart suggests boiling water, vinegar or lemon juice.
5. As a last resort, use chemical herbicides to get rid of weeds, following the manufacturer’s instructions.

If you are inundated with weeds, at some point you might consider just working with them. Below is a photo from a local park. I am pretty sure that most plants in this picture are some sort of weeds but together they look kind of pretty.

When I was reading design books last month, one book (unfortunately can’t remember which one) suggested that if you can’t control weeds in your lawn at least keep them all mowed short to fool the eye into thinking you have a lush, green lawn. We use this trick a lot in our neighborhood because grass is very difficult to grow and I have to say it works. Unless you look closely, it is hard to tell the weeds from the grass.

My four year old has completely changed my perspective on dandelions. She loves dandelions and wherever she sees them, she screams with delight, “Look, mom! A flower!” and she runs to pick it. Fortunately, no one seems to mind her picking all the dandelions. She gathers bouquets of dandelions and, grouped together, they do look pretty.

Thoughts on Mulch

Mulch is an easily abused landscaping product. In addition to helping prevent weeds and holding water in the soil, a little mulch adds color and a uniform look to garden beds. Below, for example, is a before and after mulching from my current garden clean-up efforts:

Too much mulch, though, is an eyesore! I am not sure why most professional landscapers load up on the mulch and just heap it on the beds and trees. Perhaps they order the mulch in advance in large quantities and want to use it up? Perhaps they have no internal restraint on mulch application and they just keep going until it is all gone?

Nearly every median and tree in our local shopping mall, for example, is drenched in mulch. It might cut down on weeding time but I honestly don’t know whether I would rather see weeds instead of mounds and mounds of mulch.

Some people seem to use mulch as a way to stretch out their landscaping budget. They put a few small plants in separated by lots of mulch. The effect is to make the plants looks overwhelmed and sad.

I am sure there are beautiful and creative ways to design a garden bed with lots of mulch but I have yet to see anyone execute such a strategy. In general, mulch works well when it is used as a subtle finishing touch, not as the primary visual element.

When you look at photos of incredible gardens, like the ones below, you don’t really notice any mulch. More often the plantings are dense and lush and what you notice the most is the greenery and flowers. Clever use of low-growing plants creates a lush, rich look without much mulch.

I aspire to this look but for my beginning gardening efforts, I am a mulcher for now.

Do you have a weed or mulching strategy? What weeds bug you the most? Please share in the comments.

P.S. Sending big hugs and much thanks to all the mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, girlfriends and all wonderful women who support those with children! It takes all of us! Happy Mother’s Day!