Need weeding advice

cac847

Hi everyone, this is my first time posting here. I have a horrendous weed problem in my shade garden. I'm pretty sure the offending plant is snakeroot. This is how much we pulled out last August when we moved into the house:

And now it's back. So far we've been trying to dig up the roots but there's no way to get them all and it's too time consuming to be practical. What's the best way to get rid off this much weed? I would like to avoid using commercial weedkiller if possible.TIA.

kastle

if you want to avoid a weedkiller, then hand-pulling is your only option, really.  You can try boiling water I suppose, but if the roots are very deep, I'm not sure that would work.

Do you know of any kids you could hire to pull them up?

MisN

I love that shade garden! 

Sometimes hand pulling is your only organic option.  One other thing that might work, is to put down a weed cloth under your mulch. (it looks like you have some sort of mulch/wood chips right?).  This will stop both good and bad plants from growing and could work for between your plants.
good luck!

cac847

Thanks! It's my favorite part of the yard. I can't believe the previous owners neglected it for so long. We have some mulch left, but a lot of it is just dirt and we can't afford to re-mulch the area right now. There's already weed barrier throughout the entire garden but the weed roots have grown down through the barrier. I will try the boiling water and keep pulling.

MMP

I posted these two natural products the other day. 

I've used the first one, it's great.  Haven't tried the second one yet.

Thought I would post this b/c I"m sure most of us are interested in how to kill weeds without all the chemicals.

I have had a lot of success with the weed killer from here:

www.garden-ville.com

Also, Bayer has come out with an organic line called Natria.

Just an FYI!!!

aibrean

What kind of mulch are you using? Is it treated?

cac847

aibrean:

What kind of mulch are you using? Is it treated?

I have no idea... it's probably at least five years old and was put down by the second to last owners before us.

bexbean49

I couldn't see the picture to say for sure, but I thought you need to re-mulch every year for the mulch to stop weeds (and even then it doesn't completely). The nice thing about mulch especially if you don't have a weed barrier is that it breaks down and enriches the soil over time, but to me that's also an annoying thing about it. ;-) I know our community park sometimes has free mulch made from clippings in the park - maybe that could help? If not best of luck with the pulling! I feel your pain.