It's that time again, most of the plants and lawn are dormant but the weeds aren't.  It's their time to grow, seed and take over your landscape.  

So what do I do?

Use weedkillers and herbicides?

Hire Joe shmoe to pull the weeds?

Well, pulling weeds is not as easy as it would seem and many people do it wrong.  It takes time and patience, but if you do it right, you can get up to 95% of the roots of the weeds and never see that weed alive in your yard again.

First things first, take a walk around your yard and look for weeds that are about to seed.  Like dandelions, and gentle pick them and put them in a garbage can so no seeds get blown all over your landscape. 

After you have gentle picked the seeding weeds and disposed of them, find an area of your landscape that you want to start weeding.

The easiest way is to water the area you want to weed the night before you weed.  Give the area a deep soaking so your success rate is higher at getting all the roots of the weeds. 

Next, get a towel or something to protect your knees and lay it down by the area your weeding.  You don't need any special tools, though you may want to get a pair of gloves.  

Picking the actual weed is an art.  A lot of people make the mistake of pulling to hard and breaking the weed off at the base, leaving the roots in the ground.  First grab the weed firmly but not so hard that you break the stem of the weed.  Second, start to pull, but do it slowly.  This is where many others make the mistake of pulling to fast and the weed breaks off with the roots in the ground (any time roots are left in the ground, your gonna get a return of that weed.)  Keep pulling slowly, don't rush the process.  Once, you have pulled the entire weed out, it will look like the pic to the left.  There will be soil around the roots.

Once you have de-rooted the weed, take the root and tap them against the ground several times so all the soil falls of the root.  Make a pile for your weeds and repeat the process.  It can be timely and boring but it is the best way to get rid of those annoying weeds with out putting nasty chemicals on the weeds.

After you are done with that area that is freshly weeded, I highly recommend taking your foot and compressing the areas where there is loose soil and tamp down the soil.  It also helps to put a thick layer of mulch on top of your de-weeded area to help prevent more weeds in the future.

Do this and eventually you will have a beautiful landscape with barely any weeds and fresh mulch.  Once mulch is a part of your landscape you will notice less weeds and if you do get weeds, they are easier to pull in the mulch.  

If you need any help with your weeds, give me a ring I'd love to help you manage your weeds and can help you put fresh mulch down.

Cheers and Happy Gardening! - Dave (805) 637-0404