"Santos D. Santiago" wrote in message
...
Hello All,

I have a very novice question. I have three flower beds in my house.
Right
now they are in very bad shape, they don't have any flowers only weeds and
grass. I want to resurrect these flower beds if you will. My question is
what is the best method to getting rid of the grass/weeds and getting the
beds ready for planting. I am aware that I will have to use a tiller to
get
the soil nice and ready but do I have to kill the grass first w/Roundup
lets
say? If so how long do I have to wait before I till the ground and plant?

I also would like to know what is the best thing to do to prevent grass &
weeds from growing there again. Should I put tons of mulch, fabric?

Your help is greatly appreciated.

--
SDSantiago
Milwaukee, WI

Whether or not you elect to use a tiller and/or apply something like RoundUp
should depend on how large an area you are discussing. Even after applying a
nonspecific herbicide like RoundUp to kill the current vegetation, tilling
will expose zillions of viable weed seeds which will simply take the place
of the current ones. Personally, if the beds are not huge, I'd elect to
manually remove the weeds and grasses or, if you have the luxury of time,
cover them with a thick layer of moistened newspaper topped with a good
compost to smother them. In 6 months (or less), you will have a relatively
weed-free area that has been significantly enriched with organic matter that
you can just dig under, rake level and plant.

Weeds will always reappear - it's the nature of the beast. Landscape fabric
is not a good long-term solution and it makes planting difficult. A good
layer of mulch will help reduce weed development plus enrich the soil, but
it will need to reapplied periodically. My choice is to plant heavily -
dense plantings tend to shade out weeds (or make them significantly less
visible) and I mulch in late fall after clean up to keep weeds at a minimum
during the off season. The only places weeds are a problem in my garden are
in newly planted areas where the plants have not yet filled in fully.

pam - gardengal