Don't Let Weeds Destroy Your Wildflower Garden

You sprinkle wildflower seed mixes throughout your flowerbed and most of the flowers grow as you anticipated. You are beginning to really love how your garden is coming along, but life gets in the way and your garden begins to become overgrown with weeds that compete with your chosen wildflowers for nutrients. You will need to pull out the weeds without damaging the wildflowers.

Remove Weeds Before Planting

Weeds have a tendency to sprout more quickly than wildflowers. Therefore, before you plant your wildflower seeds, you can pull up the weeds that have already sprouted. Pay close attention to what the weeds look like so you will be able to pick them out from the wildflowers when they begin sprouting.

Plant More Shrubs

Rather than simply planting wildflowers, consider planting some shrubs along with them. Weeds are usually less able to grow underneath shrubs because the shrubs are better able to compete for water and nutrients. This can reduce the ability of the weeds to spread.

Pull Weeds Rather Than Use Herbicide

While you can spray weeds with a herbicide, you risk accidentally killing your desirable wildflowers. If you are willing to get a good workout by gardening, consider pulling the weeds out instead. Begin by putting on work gloves because you may otherwise poke your hand with a thorn. Also, some of the weeds are poisonous and might give you a rash. Any insects among the weeds might sting you and could be poisonous.

Move the vegetation so you can inspect and identify what is a weed and what is a desirable plant. Take your time because weed-pulling can be exhausting work and you may need to take frequent breaks. Ideally, pull the weeds when it is cool outside and after it has rained, since the weeds are easier to pull when the soil is moist.

Try to grab the weed by the base of the stem as far into the ground as possible. Then, you will be less likely to break the stem, which makes the weed harder to remove. Gently pull the weed out. Place each of the weeds in one large paper bag that you can then dispose of.

Fill Bare Patches with More Flowers

After removing weeds, if you find that you have created too many bare patches, you may want to purchase more wildflower seeds to grow flowers that will fill the spaces. Make sure to purchase a species that grows later in the season.  

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