Front Yard weed control

Jul 25, 2011 7 Replies

I have a house in Atlanta, 7b Piedmont, with a weedy sparse front yard. It's all low growing and the weeds pop up tall shoots. Poor soil with some pine straw. It's slanty ground with a big pine and a dogwood. Kudzu is thriving next door and headed my way.



So, I've been popping the weeds out, they are hardly nothing but some broad stubby leaves laying against the ground and the aforementioned flower stalk. I can see this may not be working!



Suggestions?



Jeff


What do you want to do to the area? Sounds like it's mostly barren and you want to make it completely barren except for the pine and dogwood?

It has something like grass, but it's not thick.

I'd like to get rid of the weeds and at the moment I'm not adverse to chemicals. Then, I don't know. Maybe I should just mow it low, like everybody else.

Jeff

>

Hey, it's an adventure. And I'm blessed with not only not having to worry about mistakes, but finding them easy to make!

The coleus is thriving, the knock out rose is doing OK. The gardenias, not so good. And it's been weeks since the crime scene police were out. Ah, the life of a landlord of a 14 K house!

Jeff

If you leave the dirt bare you will be forever removing weeds, whether by hand or spray. Grass is a covering that will exclude weeds to some extent but it is high maintenance because it takes, mowing, watering, fertilising etc to grow strongly. If it doesn't grow strongly the weeds win. Grass is particularly hard to keep going in wear areas and if your climate isn't suitable but it is always costly.

You can cover the ground in other ways that are less maintenance (shrubs, ground covers, perennials etc with mulch underneath) but you can't play ball or wrassle with the dog there like on grass.

You need to decide first what you want to do in the area second how much effort you want to expend to make it look like what you want.

David

Gardening is a lot like walking around in a dark room. After you've run into everything that's there, you know where you are ;O)

Add grass seed to your yard every fall. This will make it harder for weeds to take over. If you do not fill the bare spots in the dirt, nature will.

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