Ornamental Garden Weed Control: How to Get Rid of Weeds In Ornamental Gardens

Garden weeds are any plant in your setup that you didn't plant yourself. Weeds like bindweed, purple nutsedge, and bermudagrass are notorious for popping up in gardens. Most garden weeds often are spread via seed or conducive conditions like a favorable soil type or maintenance practices which have allowed the weed to thrive.

Depending on the weed, removal can be successful via hand-pulling but most of the time it's ineffective since weeds have defense mechanisms in place or a complex underground root system. Either way, it can be taxing on the body to have to bend over and hand-pull or dig up weeds.

Along with being an eyesore, garden weeds steal important nutrients, water and lights from your desired plants. This bully-like behavior will hurt your precious flowers and garden plants if you do not intervene and put a stop to the takeover.

By following our DIY guide to weed control in flower beds, you can successfully put a stop to invasive weeds and save money doing it by using our professional quality herbicides. Follow our expert advice and step-by-step directions below and your garden will be weed free in no time.

Identification

There are a large variety of common weeds that commonly pop up in ornamental gardens--from grassy weeds to broadleaf weeds, perennials and annuals. We have a library of the most common invasive weeds that our customers encounter which you can conveniently look through to find your target weed.

Grassy weeds grow long, slender blades of grass and often blend it with turf, make them difficult to spot. Different grassy weeds include poa annua, crabgrass, and even your lawns turfgrass can be a weed if it spreads into garden bed where it doesn't belong.

Broadleaf weeds grow wide leaves with branching veins. Different broadleaf weeds include dandelion, dollarweed, and clover.

Annual weeds grown for a single season, produce seeds, and die. The seeds grow next season, continuing the cycle. Different annual weeds include crabgrass and spurge.

Perennial weeds produce a flowering body during their growing seasons and spread through both seeds and through roots, stolon's, or other similar parts. The flowering body dies at the end of the season, but will regenerate through the existing root, stolon, etc. Even if one tries to remove a perennial weed by pulling it, any remaining parts can reproduce the entire plant. Perennial weeds include dandelion and ground ivy.

Be sure to accurately identify what weeds are growing in your garden bed, as different weeds will have different approaches to treatment and will even require different products in many cases.

Inspection

Inspection is the next phase of any good pest control plan. Once you know what your pests look like, check around your property to confirm their presence or find hotspots of activity.

Where to Inspect

Inspect the garden to determine which weeds are present and how severe of an infestation you have on hand. If you have a weed that appears repeatedly, take note of the times that they emerge.

What to Look For

As mentioned earlier, weeds are any unsightly plant that you didn't plant yourself in your garden. You know what you planted and what you didn't so you'll notice pretty quickly what plant is an intruder.

For weeds that are presently established in your lawn, you will need to use a post-emergent herbicide. If there are no weeds present, but you know some will sprout later in the season, then you can apply a pre-emergent herbicide to prevent them from germinating.

Treatment

After identifying your pest and inspecting for activity on your property, its time to start treatment. Before starting any treatment, be sure to wear your personal protective equipment (PPE) and remember to keep all people and pets off the treated areas until dry.

For the purpose of removing garden weeds our top recommendations is post-emergent treatment using Eraser since it has no soil activity.

Step 1: Hand-Pull Small Weeds

If you have broadleaf annual weeds, you can remove them by hand or with a garden shovel. Unlike perennials, these weeds won't grow during their next growing cycles unless they have already produced seeds.

If you know you are dealing with perennial weeds or anything that will easily grow back, then you will need to apply a post-emergent herbicide like Eraser.

Step 2: Remove Emerged Weeds

The best way to get rid of broadleaf weeds initially is to dig them out by hand or use a garden hoe. Once you have done this, apply an post emergent weed killer like Eraser before applying a pre-emergent product. Removing as many weeds as possible will increase your selected pre-emergent herbicide.

Eraser contains the active ingredient glyphosate, so it will quickly kill any plant it is applied to. This product is often used to control weeds in cement cracks and crevices, but it can also be used to get rid of weeds in garden beds.

We suggest you mix and apply Eraser in a handheld pump sprayer marked non-selective. To spot treat with this product, mix the labeled rate of 1.5 fl. oz. of Eraser in 1 gallon of water to treat 300 sq. ft. For tougher weeds, you can use 2.5 fl. oz. of product.

With your mixed solution, spray the leaf's surfaces of any weeds you have spotted. Apply with a fan spray setting for the best coverage. You will need to be cautious not to get any product on any non-target plants. The fortunate thing about Eraser is that it has no soil activity and needs to be applied to leaves to take effect, so as long as your careful, you can kill weeds without harming your ornamental plants.

If uncertain with other post-emergent herbicides, it may be best to use a flattened piece of cardboard to shield your desired adjacent plants from product applications.

Prevention

Prevention is essential to keeping pests in check. Even after you have applied herbicides, the best way to stop weed activity is to make sure it can't happen.

• After you have removed any weeds from your garden, you can prevent new ones from growing in their places by applying a pre-emergent herbicide like Barricade Granular Pre-Emergent Herbicide. Barricade Granular Pre-Emergent Herbicide will form a chemical barrier that will prevent seeds from germinating. To determine how much product to apply, first measure the areas square footage by multiplying its length by its width (length X width = square footage). To control weeds in ornamental beds and landscaping, you can apply this product at the labeled rate of 2.5 lbs. per 1,000 sq. ft. of treatment area. We recommend you apply this product with a hand spreader. Once your product has been applied, water it in with at least 2 inches of water. If there's rain in the near forecast, you can also let mother nature do the work. When applied properly, you should notice little weed activity in the treated area for the duration of the season.

Key Takeaways

What Are The Most Common Garden Weeds?

• Depending on the season and location, there could be a large variety of broadleaf and grassy weeds, and from perennials to annuals.

How to Identify Weeds in Landscapes and Gardens

• Grassy weeds have long, slender blades of grass that help them blend into your lawn. Broadleaf weeds will have wide leaves and branching veins. Annual weeds grow only for a single season, produce weeds, then die. These seeds will grow into new annual weeds helping the cycle to continue. Perennial weeds create a flowering body during their season of growth and spread by seeds, and through roots, stolon's, and other parts. Any remaining part of the perennial weed helps continue the cycle of growth for perennial weeds.

How to Get Rid of Weeds in Ornamental Landscapes

• Garden weeds can be agitating but they are not impossible to get rid of with the use of pre-emergent and post-emergent herbicides. Apply Barricade Granular Pre-Emergent Herbicide prior to weed growth. For weed that have already emerged, you can easily knock them down with a glyphosate based post-emergent herbicide. Spot treat carefully when using products like Eraser to not harm your desired garden plants.