As promised, a photo. I dug up the corner and added grass seeds to patch the area. As you can see, it's pretty full of weeds. I try to manuually remove the dandelions since I know what they look like.

Thanks again for all your help!!!

What's the sun exposure? How is the soil? Is irrigation available? I'm sure we can find some nice OG to occupy that space. It's like a nice planter.

As far as clearing out the existing vegetation, in a natural way, some 4-mil clear painter's dropcloth plastic should do the trick. Mow it as short as you can, cover it with the plastic, weighted down with bricks to keep it in place. That should kill everything there, including buried weed seeds. You could speed it up by spraying with dilute vinegar before covering it, but unless you're in a hurry, it isn't necessary. Everything should be dead, cleared and the soil prepped by early fall...which is a good time to plant the new material.

ditto what donn said. One thing though, my town has an ordinance that limits the height of what we can plant there. Before you invest $$$, you should check with your town.

Thanks Don and Jerseygirl! I am not sure of the soil PH since I'm a little new. It does get full sun since it's facing South with light shade from the neighbor's tree. It is a little problematic in the corners because of the water run-off from the driveways after it rains.

My neighbor has perennials and grasses and short bulbs there which she mulches every fall. She interplants them with annuals each spring for interest. I think Marigolds are the choice this year.

JerseyGirl, I only want to do short grasses and perennials (nothing higher than the weeds growing now. LOL.)

I have black landscaping cloth. Can I use that to kill off the weeds? The cloth has little breathable holes in it. Will it allow anything else in there? Will the vinegar change the soil's composition? I saw on pinterest a link for vinegar/epson/dish soap weed killer. Is that a good one? I'm guessing I wont be the most popular neighbor in the block with a painter's dropcloth in my front lol. Thanks for all the help!!!! I have attached a screenshot of my neighbor's traffic strip. The people down from them have Daises and a rose bush!

I purchased 2 seed packets of Blue Fescue Ornamental Grass. I'm thinking of putting that down too. Mondo Grass (Dwarf) maybe. I ahve so many ideas. I want something easy to take care of and perennial and colorful. Again, Thanks for all the help (I can be a little long winded. LOL).

Any of the smaller Fescues; Festuca glauca, F. gautieri, F. amethystina, F. idahoensis, etc., would be good choices. A mix of them would be best. They like full sun, tolerate salt and are very cold hardy. They won't take much foot traffic, but if you spread them apart with mulch paths between them, and maybe a few nice stepping stones, most folks won't walk on the plants.

In the drainage-problem corners, dig out the soil and fill in with a mix of golf ball-sized and smaller gravel. If you install a gravel-filled trench, 12-18" deep and a foot wide, at each end of the hell strip, it should solve the problem.

Porous black landscaping cloth won't kill what's there now. You want to starve the weeds of water and cooler air, and heat the ground (which is why clear is better than black for solarizing). A more labor-intensive solution would be to dig out the top 6" of soil and all the growth, throw it away, and replace it with good topsoil.

This post was edited by donn_ on Thu, May 22, 14 at 12:19

Thanks Donn for the suggestion. I have 3 bags of those marble chips that I probably use for the corner area. I may switch to medium sized river rocks since it matches better with my red mulch.

And will the clear tarp kill off those little wild onion things that come up each spring and fall? I ask because the little bulbs sometimes are burried deep (4" down sometimes). I HATE them. LOL...

I'm talking about Star of Bethlehem. I have a small patch of the nice little flowers. I have found that these are very invasive. Will using a tarp to deprive them of light kill them? Thanks!!

I've been talking about a clear tarp, which will not exclude light. It concentrates heat, and kills vegetative growth by burning it out. It should work on the bulbs of Ornithogalum umbellatum. If not, it's a fairly easy task to dig the bulbs, and although the plant will spread by seed, vegetative offset its primary method.

I actually grow Star of Bethlehem on purpose. I grow it in containers, and collect volunteer clusters of bulbs to replant in them. It makes a good flower for small spring arrangements.

Again, Thanks Donn!!