How to Kill Weeds Permanently

Weeds can be the worst enemy for your garden that don’t just ruin your plants but end up destroying your entire garden. They become parasitic to your plants, lawn, and garden taking the water and nutrients for themselves. Therefore, it is very important to eradicate all the weeds from your garden so that the plants not only look beautiful but are also healthy.

This discussion will help you understand the problem in greater depth and help you identify how to get rid of weeds permanently and without spending too much money!

Why do weeds re-grow when removed?

There are various reasons due to which the weeds re-grow in your garden. Let’s look at some of the causes that lead to the regeneration of weeds in your garden:

• Even when they are removed it is possible that their roots stay planted in the soil. Once these left-over roots get water and sunlight, the weeds tend to grow again.
• Your garden may be located in an area that is surrounded by woods or non-landscaped areas which contain a lot of weeds. In such cases, the weeds might get dispersed by the wind or birds and easily reach your garden, thereby, leading to the regeneration of weeds.
• If you do not have a dense lawn, then the empty spaces provide a breeding ground for the weeds and, thereby, lead to their re-growth.

So, the big question left to answer is: how to kill weeds forever?

Effective Measures to Remove Weeds

Some of the popular and effective measures to remove weeds from your garden include:

1. Manually – Removal by Hand

One of the best and the most effective way to remove weeds from your garden is to pull them with your hands. Though, this method involves a lot of labor it is the cheapest technique that can be deployed. While you are pulling the weeds out, make sure that you pull out the entire plant and the roots are not left behind.

For all those weeds which have shallow roots, all you need to do is hold the weed by the stem and pull it out gently. In case of the ones with deep roots, you can use a gardening tool such as a hoe and dig a small hole around the weeds such that soil loosens while you are able to pull out the weed with ease. Whatever the case may be, you should successfully pull out the entire root so that all chances of regeneration are removed.

2. Using Gardening Tools

Removing weeds with your hands can be time consuming and involves a lot of labor. So, alternatively, you can use a gardening tool for this task. Again, you have to pay attention to the nature of weeds that you need to remove. If the weed is a shallow one, a simple garden hoe will do. But if the weed is deep rooted, you will have to use special equipment known as ‘weed puller’.

Consider using a tool like the Fiskars Weed Puller if the method of using your hands to manually pull out the roots of the plant does not seem like an attractive option for you

Using a weed puller is very simple. Let’s take a quick glance on how to will use it:

1. Place the bottom tip of the blade of the weed puller next to the stem of the weed and press it down in a vertical direction.
2. When you press it vertically, the blade moves straight into the soil.
3. Once the blade has reached a considerable depth, simply tilt it and bring the weed out. If you feel that the weed has not been completely removed, then repeat this process again.

Note: Removing the weeds with the aid of a weed puller is more time consuming than using a common garden hoe because you have to remove each plant individually; but it will work well if you are dealing with deep roots.

3. Use a Herbicide

If there are a large number of weeds present in your garden, you cannot remove them all manually and in such cases you have to treat these weeds chemically. It is the easiest method and also the one that consumes minimal time. All you need to do is to buy a weed killer, follow the instructions, and spray it directly on your plants.

After a day or two you will notice that the weeds in your garden have died. Then comes the tedious job of removing these dead weeds with your hands. However, removing the dead weeds is much easier than pulling out the live ones.

Note: You can buy the concentrated chemical product and make a diluted solution by mixing it with water. Spray this diluted solution on all the unwanted plants in your garden to get rid of them.

Prevention is Always Better!

Instead of killing the weeds when they have already damaged your plants, why not stop them from growing in the first place? Some recommendations to help you keep weeds away have been listed below:

1. Use a Weed Preventer

You can use granules of weed preventers such as Preen so as to curb the growth of weeds in your garden.

Preen is a organic product that uses corn gluten meal to prevent weeds from germinating. This eliminates the need for removing weeds by hand. It targets even the toughest of weeds including clover, bluegrass, crabgrass, foxtail, plantain, and lambsquarters to name a few. Preen is also a pet safe herbicide.

Also, some bottles of Preen are equipped with a dispenser that allows for easy and fast spraying of the granules around the bushes in your garden.

2. Weed control with a Lawn fertilizer

Spray a fertilizer in your garden at intervals. This way, you will not only enhance the yield of your garden but will also curb the growth of unwanted plants. Some of products like Scott’s Turf Builder Weed and Feed is a perfect mix of both weed preventer and fertilizer.

3. Natural Weed Preventer

Landscape fabric can help remove the weeds permanently from your garden. You can get rolls of this from any hardware store near your house or conveniently buy online. You can also check out our article on weed control fabric.

Concluding Thoughts

You need to take a holistic approach to treating weeds in your garden. At some point, weeds are bound to sprout in the most unannounced manner, inducing a few wrinkles on your forehead. Fret not because weeds can be easily controlled if you adopt the measures discussed above. It is always better to use a manual method as the first-choice weed-removing agent. Safer, more natural options help you exponentially reduce the damage induced on the surrounding plants and soil. If you’ve exhausted all efforts on the manual part, a weed killer should be your next go-to approach.