How to kill everything?

raeyn

A couple years ago we bought a house with a terribly unkempt yard. There is garden bed along the fence all the way to the back of the yard that was just full of every kind of weed and vine imaginable. Last summer I finally got around to trying to rip it all out, and found it pretty much impossible. The roots go so deep that I was only able to do a surface job and the terrible things grew back in a week.

How can I kill everything that's growing there? I don't really mind if it means I can't plant anything here for a few years, since I figure just mulch with some solar lights would be better than the weeds. Any ideas? I tried Roundup last summer to no avail. Should I just use a lot more of it this year, or is there something better I can try?

nital

i try to avoid using chemicals...so i'd probably hit it with boiling water, or suffocate it with plastic or newspaper.  the plastic will need to be removed, but if you do newspaper, you can hit weedwack, cover with with several layers of wet newspaper, then mulch to hide and keep the newspaper in place.  in a year, the paper should decompose, and you can plant away.

lawright

I agree with the suffocation idea.  I also recommend renting a roto-tiller from Lowes/Home Depot and rototilling the bejeezus out of it. 

~NB~

Roundup will work fine, but keep in mind that Roundup does not stay in the soil so it won't keep killing the new weeds that sprout; you'll have to keep spraying the newbies. It only works if it gets ON living plants.

The version of Roundup available to for home use (unlicensed consumers) is very watered down, so you may have to spray several times a week to get a complete kill. You can replant the area 24hrs after using Roundup, and apply mulch to limit new weeds.

Killing everything and having just mulch and solar lights would not be a better option; it would be quite environmentally unfriendly.

musgral8

Suffocation works really well! I would recommend that over using chemicals because as pp said, the chemicals only kill what they touch, if you cover the soil in newspaper or plastic the weeds get no sunlight and minimal oxygen and die

myvette13

I am in the same boat as the originial poster, can someone explain suffication to me?  Do I just lay a big plastic trap on the ground?

raeyn

Thanks so much for all your suggestions! I think I will try putting down newspaper and mulch this weekend before too many weeds come up.