We have a big problem. This is a very large raised bed in our front yard. At one time it was gorgeous, and now it is a disaster thanks to bringing in bulk dirt about 7 years ago from a local nursery. It completely infested the flower bed and the grass with horsetails. We have spent the last 3 years spraying to kill them off. Now it is just full of grass and we lost everything. To say that I am devastated would be an understatement. My husband and I are not physically able to hand remove all the grass and dirt. We want to remove everything and refill it with dirt but are scared that we are going to end up with a weed infestation again from the new dirt. How would you go about removing all of this and what would be the best way to bring in bulk dirt to avoid another infestation of weeds? I'm pretty sure that most of the neighbors think that we have abandoned our house at this point! Any ideas are appreciated.
by Personal_Web_8251
24 Comments
Could you cover it with heavy tarp for a year then just plant new stuff?
Shovel, rake, creeping phlox.
Hire a landscaper. They’ll clean it out, add fresh dirt and plant what you want. And if you can’t maintain it they’ll do that too.
Chaos garden. Grab a bag of local wild flower mix and go to town
If you are in the Chicagoland area this is what I specialize in. Landscape restoration
hire a gardener maybe? its a pretty small job, shouldnt take too long
Two paths:
First path, this is your new obsession. You’re going to spend your days and nights reading books, watching YouTube videos and listening to podcasts. You’re going to get a lot of stuff wrong, but in 12 months you’re going to be a way better gardener.
Or, just hire someone who has already been through the steep learning curve. Unfortunately its hard to pick a good plant person over the cowboys. I would look for a qualified horticulturist, rather than a landscaper who focuses on hardscapes. Edit: autocorrect
Dig out a few inches (3-4″), lay weed barrier, mulch the entire thing. Part mulch, cut weed barrier, insert new plants, reset mulch.
Its a lot of work. If you want to do it piecemeal you can. If you want to hire someone you can.
Alternatively you can add another course of bricks and make the bed taller. If you got that route cut the grass real low, weed barrier and mulch. If you go this route I’d suggest a different brick so it looks like you were capping the wall.
Either way if you are struggling with the idea of the physical work involved now don’t plant a bunch of stuff that needs a lot of maintenance. You will thank yourself in 5-10 years.
I would PERSONALLY drench the area in vinegar to rid of everything there currently, cover with a tarp and cardboard boxes. After a few weeks I’d remove the tarp, and start putting cutouts into the cardboard (that at this point should just start decomposing) and throw native flowers’ seeds into said cutouts. May the strongest survive
Lots of cardboard and lots of mulch. You might want to start with a black tarp and rocks first.
If you are overwhelmed by this, you should pay someone to fix it because you can’t tackle it if something like this overwhelms you. If you can’t afford someone to fix it, I recommend teaching yourself to not give a f*ck.
1) save any plants you want if there are perennials
Coming up in there
2) cut that grass really low
3) cover it with clean cardboard (no tape, dyes etc). Bike shops often have a ton they will give you
4) wet the cardboard with a hose
5) apply 3 inches of mulch
I put black plastic tight over it for a year. Then started over. It actually worked out extremely well. It takes time and money to replace mature perennials, but worth it.
I can see why you miss those flowers. Lovely. A friend of mine covered a bed w/ cardboard boxes then spread heavy mulch on top. Seemed to smother weeds. Said you could leave it down or remove after a few months. Honestly, if I were physically not up to the task, I would hire professionals to restore gardens. Spend your time enjoying the beauty, not sweating over it.
Cheap relatively painless options:
Spray strong weed-killing garden vinegar in a cheap pump-sprayer. Everything will die. Of course you’ll still have all that dead grass sitting there which you’re either going to want to remove — or till back into the soil — or leave for a year until it disintegrates back into the soil.
Or ask a neighborhood kid to remove all the grass and bag it up and throw it away. Offer him a hundred and fifty bucks for a day’s work (maybe half a day). What kid wouldn’t say yes to that? Then plant flowers, etc.
Or hire a gardener or landscaping company to do this and replace the grass with maybe 12-15 new plants, some small bushes and some flowers and grasses. Maybe $500? Maybe $1000?
Or buy a couple or three bags of native wildflower seeds and sprinkle them heavily all over that thing and water it twice a day. They’ll compete with the grass and grow and the whole thing will end up looking like a normal wildflower garden where flowers naturally compete with grasses. If it doesn’t work, what have you lost?
No weed barriers, please, as they do not work and black plastic is awful to add to Mother Nature.
Good luck.
Why not just cover with tarp until it all dies
If you try to dig out that grass right now it’s going to be really really difficult. You also mentioned something about your lawn needing some help.
If I were you I would cover the entire raised bed in black plastic for about a year and let everything decompose underneath it. Next year, dig out the top 6 inches or so and disperse it throughout your lawn. It will be easier to dig because the grass roots are dead, and the excess dirt on your lawn will help your grass green up.
Then get a load of clean topsoil compost mix for your raised bed. Clean is important because that means you won’t get any weed seeds initially. Any new weeds that come up will be from the wind so you just have to go out there and pluck them out once in a while.
Plant shrubs and plants that outcompete weeds in your raised bed. Heathers/ lithadora/thyme etc
Now you have a green lawn and a raised bed that you don’t have to work too hard to keep pretty!
I would spray the bed with vinegar, then lay heavy cardboard on top. Add shredded hardwood mulch at least 2″ deep. Allow to sit as is until fall, then scrape back a three or four mulched areas enough to plant some shrubs (the cardboard will have started to disintegrate by then). Next spring, plant some more shrubs or perennials, by then the cardboard will have mostly “melted” into the soil.
Holy cow. I’m just here to say that the bed you had was GORGEOUS! I’m sorry to hear what happened.
Hire a landscaper
Overwhelmed by a 12m² garden bed?
Are you opposed to chemicals? I would kill it all.. when it dies, remove the dead grass. Spray pre-emerge once this fall and again in the spring. Then start fresh planting next spring, use mulch. Maintaining from there will be easier. Rake out excess mulch every spring and reapply.
Unfortunately this wasn’t the nursery’s fault at all. You sprayed the garden and killed off all of the plants you wanted to keep. The existing horsetails and grasses laugh at the spray and took over.
Why did you add so much extra dirt to an existing bed like that in the first place? If it was that well established you should have only had to weed it from time to time, and perhaps the occasional fertilizer.
Any large amount of dirt you add to this bed will probably have some kind of seeds in it. Weeding is an inevitability.
You guys are unable to do any of the physical weeding after it’s established back to it’s former glory? In the future you’ll need to hire a gardner if you can’t do the work, even if it’s only twice a year. The honest truth about gardening is that it’s work. Please, please, please avoid using herbicide if at all possible. For some reason everyone thinks it’s magical thing that’ll take away the weeds and save your garden when in reality the chemicals are generationally toxic and are nearly always improperly used. They should be used in specific situations, and in my experience that’s never around a persons home (except in extreme situations).
Cover it with black plastic sheet. Come back in a month.