Flower bed/garden weed killer of choice?

I do a Spectracide and Muratic Acid irish carbomb type thing.

The lady at old time farm supply recommended Green Light Amaze. I’ve had my flower beds tilled up with fresh garden soil for a little more than a week and nothing started growing yet.

I just use roundup, I buy the compare n save brand of glyphosate (same as roundup) because it is cheaper.

Eraser and 24D

You can also use Dimension or Prodiamine, that’s frequently discussed on this board as a lawn pre-emergents, in landscape beds - and they labeled for that use, but they not labeled for use in vegetable beds. Of course can’t use them if anything you might plant in the bed is a seed.

As a post-emergent I also use glyphosate, generic “Roundup”, usually the Hi-Yield Killzall brand is readily available in various size containers at a decent price. Usually oxalis and sedges I need to control with non-selective post-emergents.

Of course a good layer of mulch, 3 inches, helps with weed suppression.

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Do you have a recommendation for what type of mulch to use? Is rubber mulch terrible? The idea of not having to replace it each year is tempting

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Well, any mulch you choose is better than no mulch at all whether it be rubber mulch, wood chips, pine straw, leaves, etc.

Personally, I like and use pine straw in my front yard with a street view landscape beds, effective, aesthetic (IMO), and works well with the azaleas and camellias I have there as the pine straw creates acidity as it breaks down (but then all organic mulches do that) but it needs a fresh application annually. Many consumer horticultural extension agents seem to favor pine straw as well. I also like that its easy to move aside if you want to add another plant or flowers and move back in place afterwards.

In my backyard, which is my view only, my friends save for me bags of live oak leaves and I use that as mulch. Live oak leaves tend to stay in place without having to chop them up. I probably save about $150 using free leaves over pine straw bales which of course I then use to buy more plants, etc.

I’ve not used the rubber mulch, I’m sure it works, but if there any down side others will have to comment on. In the past I used wood chip mulch, and still do use it for container plants, but for landscape beds I always found myself coming back to pine straw.

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I use prodiamine for my lawn so I may just use that. It is probably to late to treat the landscape beds with it so I will just tackle it with a postemergent until I apply premergent on the lawn again. Would you say prodiamine is as effective as like snapshot?

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ronk could likely answer that better than me. I know the active ingredient in Snapshot is a very good one used widely in the ornamental landscape trade, and I suspect it has a broader spectrum of weed control. I’ve not personally used it.

If you feel comfortable with iDing the weeds in your beds, check the labels or the Prodiamine and Snapshot, they will list the weeds they control. Proper mulching will indeed help with most weeds, except nutsedge (I swear that stuff will penetrate concrete) and oxalis, and little mulching in practiced landscape nursery trade since plants are not permanent fixtures, they are grown to be sold, so they probably need to use broader spectrum pre-emergents (that’s speculation on my part, without checking with an expert).

Snapshot is going to be better. It is specifically made for bed weed control. I'm going to lie and say that I knew these numbers off the top of my head but snapshot control over 120 weeds and is safe for over 600 ornamentals.

You just have to weigh pros and cons. Something you already have vs something that comes in one size and ain't cheap.

Snapshot can be applied at any time. Prodiamine can still be applied but you've likely missed the window on some of the weeds that it will control. Preen is one of the two active ingredients in Snapshot. So it works about the same but not quite.