How to Keep Grass Out of Flower Beds (10 Easy Fixes)

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Unwanted grasses are often a nightmare to gardeners. They are a constant nuisance to any plant, including your flower bed. This is why mastering how to keep grass out of flower beds is essential.

Most grasses are so stubborn that you will find it challenging to pull them out from the root, especially flower beds. When grass grows in flowerbeds, it looks messy.

Interestingly, there are some things you can do to keep grass out of your flower bed, such as keeping a close watch on your watering, and having a dense layer of mulch installed around the flower beds can go a long way towards keeping grasses out.

Let’s now discuss, in detail, how to get rid of grass growing in flower beds.

How to Get Rid of Grass Growing in Flower Beds

How to Keep Grass Out of Flower Beds

As I mentioned earlier, getting rid of grasses is one of the most troubling issues you will always face. This can be somewhat problematic since you have to be extremely careful to avoid damaging the flowers you’re aiming to protect.

Below are the key suggested methods that you can try out for good riddance.

1. Through the Use of Broad-Spectrum Herbicide

This method is one of the most effective, although you still have to be very careful, as it can kill any ornamental plant it touches.

You have to mix with water and apply carefully with a garden sprayer. Ensure there’s no rainfall and wind when spraying.

2. Through the Use of Pre-emergent Killer

This method is used to avoid new seeds that drop on the soil. Though it’s a product that doesn’t affect the roots of unwanted grasses, it kills off grass seeds already present in the soil.

However, if there are ornamental plants in your garden, it’s not safe to use the pre-emergent weed killer.

3. Through the Use of Selective Herbicide

As the name implies, this method is exclusive to kill grasses that grow nearer to the flowers or ornamental plants because it can only kill the grasses without affecting garden plants.

It eliminates annual weeds, including crabgrass and foxtails, and perennial weeds, including nimblewill and quackgrass.

4. Through the Use of Organic Methods

This method of grass killing is mainly associated with gardeners that’s not comfortable using chemicals.

This method applies to using organic or natural materials such as Vinegar (diluted), boiling water, heating/flaming, solarizing, corn gluten, etc.

5. Through the Use of Hands

It is a method that is most common for getting rid of smaller grasses. In other words, it does not apply to extensive gardens with heavily infested weeds.

To remove grasses entirely with your hands, you have to carefully loosen the soil and pull out the grasses as much as possible with some amount of force.

How to Keep Grasses And Weeds Out of Flower Beds

As we earlier mentioned, unwanted grasses and weeds are a nuisance to your flower bed. It is often an eyesore to find your flower bed overgrown with weeds.

Most times, you find it challenging to get rid of them, mainly when they have grown to a certain extent.

Therefore, as the famous saying goes, “prevention is better than cure.” You need to follow specific preventive measures to keep grasses and weeds out of your flower beds.

6. Through Mulching

It is the covering of the top layer of soil to protect or discourage weeds and at the same time retain moisture.

Mulching is one of the best preventive measures against grasses. Not only does it protect your flower bed from weeds, but it also shades the soil.

7. Through Installation of Landscaping Fabric or Weed Barrier

It is a water-permeable substance established directly on your soil surface.

It is the easiest and cheapest method of preventing grasses and weeds from your flowerbed since it acts as a barrier to prevent unwanted plants from finding their way to the surface.

8. Through Appropriate Watering

If there’s excessive water in your flower bed, it will find its way to the thirsty grasses and weeds that will overrun your plants.

Also, ensure you install small weeping holes that pave the way for the outflow of or exit of excess water that will gather in your flower bed.

9. Through Securing of Wall Footing

It is one of the most effective measures against grasses and weeds. By securing a concrete footing for your stonework, you have successfully prevented weeds from your flower bed.

You build a wall footing by establishing a 4inches deep by 4.5inches wide trench and pouring a minimum of 3inches of concrete with rebar. Immediately, it dries up; you’re free to install your landscape stone edging.

10. Through the Use of Groundcover Plants

It is another good measure to keep grasses and weeds from your flowerbed. Establishing a groundcover works as a natural mulching system.

Aside from protecting the soil, Groundcover also functions as an obstacle above and beneath the soil level to prevent the roots of the grasses from developing further.

How to Keep Grass Out of Flower Beds when Trimming

No gardener loves grasses on their flower beds when trimming. Therefore, they try as much as they can to keep them out to prevent it from affecting the ornamental plants on the flower beds when trimming.

Below are the measures or steps towards keeping grass out of flower your flower beds when trimming.

  • The first step is to protect the soil by covering the mulch from the top of your flower bed to the initial plants growing underneath with a piece of wrapped landscaping cloth. Be careful not to cover the rim of the grass to get hold of grass when trimming.
  • Try to weigh the landscaping fabric down with bricks kept at a constant, per-foot timing along the length of the flower bed. Then, rather than place the bricks on the grass surface, you drop them on the fabric.
  • The next thing to do is trim around the garden’s edge to ensure most of the offcuts are retrieved into the lawn and not toward the garden.
  • Then, get rid of the bricks and landscaping fabric out of the garden. Be careful to prevent some offcuts that fell on the fabric from finding their way into the garden.
  • Push a half-moon edger 6 inches deep into the soil and 1/2-inch away from the edge of the garden to cut off roots of rhizome grasses that are capable of overrunning your flower beds from beneath.
  • Excavate the cut part from the edge of the flower bed using a hand trowel. Trim any rough pieces of grass around the edge using a pair of hand shears to ensure a smooth and even edge and surface.

Final Thoughts

Grasses and weeds have this tendency to grow back after a short period. It is where the gardener has a lot of work to do. Having succeeded in keeping grasses out of your flower bed, you have to prevent them from growing back.

You can do this by covering the flower bed soil using a 3inch layer of mulch to discourage new grass seeds from germinating.

Also, it can be prevented through landscape fabric, although it creates more work subsequently, when it tears or when weeds germinate on the fabric surface.

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