Hi & welcome to Gardenweb! If you have large areas where no or few desirable plants are growing, you could smother with newspaper/cardboard, then mulch over. If you can leave these areas alone until next year, you should be able to garden w/o too much weedy-ness after that. Some potted annuals sitting in these areas this year can help with the anxiousness.

RU doesn't usually kill Canada thistle, at least not w/o repeated applications. Until it gets hot, RU is not very effective on anything. If you need to use that, try to keep the flowers cut off until the RU can really do its' thing.

Ivy is more difficult to smother, if it's Hedera helix. There is likely hard, woody stems near the ground. Can it be dug up? Roots left behind are likely to be able to continue growing, so smothering might be helpful after digging out the majority of the woody parts.

Bittercress won't last through the heat of summer. If you can keep it mowed, or smother it, it can't make new seeds for next years' crop.

I live next to an unmowed yard, too. About all you can do on that is either mow it yourself, report it if there's a city ordinance, hope the wind blows the other way!

You're on the right track with mulch, but it's not a cure-all. Keeping it to a functional thickness, about 3-4" is what's always worked best for me. Seeds will still find their way to your yard, but if you patrol often, pull them while they're small, it's usually pretty easy to keep them under control with a few minutes per week, once control has been established.

Do your planting beds have a border/barrier separating them from the lawn? If not, that's something I would address this year. Do you need some inspiration to get started? Feel free to add some pics if you still feel overwhelmed or would like some more specific advice.

Ground Ivy usually refers to Glechoma hederacea, a very common weed lawns and gardens.

Pulling the bittercress is your best option. Not so much for the other two, as you already know. I'd be after them with RU.

The fact that your problem is mostly in your garden area and not your lawn makes control more difficult. There are herbicides that will kill these weeds in lawns but you can't use them in the garden with the rest of your broadleaf plants!

Persistence will go a long ways, don't give up.

I think Rhizo is imagining you've got more good plants with Old McDonald weeds, here-a-weed, there-a-weed... between a lot of "keepers." If it's more like that, it would be a matter of asking yourself, do I have the time to pull all of these plants up? Some people opt to remove the "good plants" to make it easier to smother large, unbroken areas. Wherever there's a gap in the smothering, weeds are, well, not suppressed, so if it's thin strips between good plants, smothering won't help much.

As perspective, in my minds' eye, I see your beds as mostly devoid of desirable plants, with much space between those that would be "keepers." Although I wouldn't begrudge someone's use of chems to establish control, it would be preferable to me to smother where possible. I would define possible as any spot where I can completely cover a patch of weeds with newspaper or cardboard in large enough areas around existing plants so I could cover it with several inches of mulch without having the mulch wash "into" the existing plants.

It's not that I have anything against using chems to establish control, but that's only part of the issue. If it's been lawn or neglected "flower bed," likely the soil does not have good tilth, fertility, drainage. Even this type of very basic lasagna can be incredibly helpful in all of these regards. If your dedication and determination extend as far, it's so easy to add other amendments as part of/when smothering. I like to put bagged lawnmower clippings under the paper in case it has seeds in it. (Then when the paper/cardboard contacts it, you've got a good green/brown thing composting under there.) Between the paper/cardboard and the mulch, one can add compost, leaves, whatever seed-free, easily decomposed organic matter is available. When you stick a shovel in later, that fall is OK if you want to add some shrubs/perennials, next year for summer annuals and anything more, you should be amazed by the difference.

There's also an impatient form of smothering where one uses whatever they can keep in contact with the soil. A tarp or sheet of plastic, pieces of metal, the bags of mulch you will eventually use in that area, anything that will cover up the weeds until they die. After a time, you remove the cover and see if it's dead. Once you determine everything is, cover with mulch, compost, whatever your plan is, then start gardening. IME with using both methods many times, a smother layer of paper and the longer wait is worth it in the future. The quick-smother often results in the sprouting of many seeds that were at the surface but just hadn't decided to grow yet, especially right where you dig holes to add the plants that couldn't wait until next year, pretty much thwarting your efforts.

With options, you can choose the best one, which you may decide is spraying. If so, putting a cardboard box upside-down on nearby plants can be helpful to avoid the mist from getting on them. Try to do when...