As much as it's a pain in the rear to do, pulling them out by hand is the most effective way to get rid of them if they're throughout your perennials. The roots only have so much stored energy, so if you get them right away, they will eventually die back - but you have to be religious about weeding them out! Every day, or every other day, make a pass through the problem areas and yank out what you see as soon as you see it.

There is one other thing you can do. If you haven't already done so, apply a good mulch 3-4" deep around the perennials. That will force the weeds to expend much more energy trying to reach the light, their energy stores will be much more exhausted, and they will be easier to remove.

BP

I am backing BP's suggestions on tackling the weeds. cutting their light source will be effective but weeding it by hand. For the shallots or possibly chives however, the most effective way is to take a pitchfork and to break the bulbs out of the soil.

Weeds are a pain, they will always return no matter what. You only have to check the weeds growing in aspalted roads to know just how persistent they can be. One thing I employ to minimize weeds is to take a hoe and disturb any young weeds from growing. This is effective enough when the weeds are very young. they almost certainly will die out from having their roots exposed to the heat.

What I also do which is probably to one's taste, is to spread annual wild flower seeds all over the bare areas and what this does is to have colourful blooming plants crowd out potential weeds. So far that too has been effective - not to mention that it also attracts a lot of nice wildlife to my yard. It also draws people to my yard. I've had nice chats with people who take interest in different approach to gardening.

Ianna

Thank you both so much, I think my fingernails knew the answer all along but still maintained hope for a lazy answer =P
Thanks again!