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Advice please: Reworking existing bed full of weeds

Posted on 7/23/25 at 11:08 am
Posted by HouseMom
Member since Jun 2020
1703 posts
Posted on 7/23/25 at 11:08 am
Title explains it all. We ripped out an older bed (sad, tired plants) and plan to replant in the same footprint. Unfortunately, the soil is full of random weeds.

What would you do to eliminate the weeds/seed and also create soil healthy enough to put in plants we want?
Posted by Sir Saint
1 post
Member since Jun 2010
5469 posts
Posted on 7/23/25 at 11:20 am to
round up existing weeds then pre-emergent like Preen to prevent residual weed seed germination
Posted by Earthquake 88
Mobile
Member since Jan 2010
3226 posts
Posted on 7/23/25 at 11:20 am to
I’d spray them with Roundup. Let them die then take a tiller to the beds and turn the soil. I did that to mine a decade ago and added some more top soil, peat moss, and made raised beds then planted. I buy round bales of dyed pine straw for mulch. It’s a little pricey, but it holds its color for about 8 months. I spot spray Roundup in my flower beds still to do routine weed control. Home Depot sells one that has a round plastic cone around the spray tip which helps with the wind blowing it onto my plants.
Posted by cgrand
HAMMOND
Member since Oct 2009
46190 posts
Posted on 7/23/25 at 11:41 am to
pull up the weeds you can see.
put down a layer of wet cardboard boxes or wet newspapers.
put a thick layer of shredded bark mulch over that.

don’t till…all you will be doing is working the seeds into the soil. Don’t put pre emergent or spray roundup if you are interested in healthy soil with a good fungal network. Occasionally you will get a stray weed, pull it before it goes to seed. After a few years the seed bank will be exhausted.

I would let the bed overwinter with your mulch and cardboard but keep it wet.
Posted by crewdepoo
Hogwarts
Member since Jan 2015
10876 posts
Posted on 7/23/25 at 9:12 pm to
How big? I'd try to pull them. Then you could cove them for a while to kill the remaining. Or pull as much as you can then a layer of cardboard with new soil and mulch on top
Posted by HouseMom
Member since Jun 2020
1703 posts
Posted on 7/24/25 at 9:09 am to
quote:

How big?


The bed is huge and covers the entire front of our house. I mean I could technically pull all of them out, but there were TONS of weeds when we pulled the mulch back. Clearly the mulch was working, but I hate to till without putting something there.

It's an old bed with lots of roots and fibrous material. Very compacted soil, so I do think it needs to be turned.
Posted by TU Rob
Birmingham
Member since Nov 2008
13308 posts
Posted on 7/24/25 at 10:21 am to
quote:

It's an old bed with lots of roots and fibrous material. Very compacted soil, so I do think it needs to be turned.


One of mine was like that where I was gardening a few years back. Covered it with cardboard and raked a ton of pine straw up to put on top of that for about a month. I cleared it all out, tilled it up, and added in several bags of garden soil while I was tilling. Had an awesome garden that year with no weeds overtaking it. I used one of these to pull out weeds during the summer. The pronged side really grabs on to them and yanks them out to the root most of the time.

Posted by Jmcc64
alabama
Member since Apr 2021
1747 posts
Posted on 7/24/25 at 12:45 pm to
so with a raised bed, what is used for the "walls"? will that keep out the lawn grass?

Our zoysia seeks out flower beds with a vengeance.
Posted by Spankum
Miss-sippi
Member since Jan 2007
60256 posts
Posted on 7/25/25 at 8:52 pm to
I would spray glyphosate now, let it die down, and spray it again on whatever sprouts back up.

In the meantime have a soil sample analyzed.

Also till in a hell of a lot of peat to bring up the organic matter, as flower beds that haven’t been worked in years are always low on organic matter.
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