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| I am slowly starting to renovate all of my foundation plantings for various reasons but mainly because their is no rhyme or reason to what is in them. I'm also upgrading my water drainage in the process. I am looking to use cuttings and divisions of stuff I already have as well as move some of the shrubs, but most of the shrubs are going bye-bye. I am planning on mainly filling most of it in with groundcovers. I have a couple different kinds of creeping evergreens, as well as sedums, snow on the mountain, and phlox, and pachysandra. Obviously I know it takes time for these things to grow and fill in and competition from weeds makes things even slower. I don't have time to be out there every day pulling up every little weed that comes up, that is why I want it all filled in with thick groud covers as fast as possible. I plan on pulling everything out including existing mulch and landscape fabric adding some leaf mould and compost into the soil covering with lots of wet newspapers, replanting, and adding a very thick layer of mulch. I was thinking an effective way to keep weeds from seeding while waiting for my groundcovers to fill in would be to pre mix a good amount of corn gluten right into my mulch as I apply it, I don't plan on planting anything from seed directly into the beds so would this do the trick?? I am going to catch serious flack from my wife if this becomes weed infested just like the rest of the beds around our house. We lead busy lives and are trying to simplify our life, maybe someday I can get into more diverse landscaping but right now I just don't want to pull weeds out of a new bed that I spent a lot of time and $$ on. Because eventually with our busy lives the weeds will win and the ground covers will lose.
Jason |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Jason, four things in life are certain: death, taxes, grey hair and weeds! That being said your approach will certainly minimise annual weeds seeds from germinating. You say that your other beds are weed infested. The key to your success is to know which weeds you have and deal with them appropriately both before you start and as you progress through this project. Corn gluten is a good idea and I have had a degree of success in a new bed using a similar approach. However, I think that the success is as much attributable to the newspapaer and the mulch as it is to using the corn gluten. I did spend two years erradicating Canada thistle and creeping bellflower first. So you definitely need to make sure you at least identify any perennial weeds before you start, or you will be setting yourself up for a fall. |
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