How to Keep Grass Out of Flower Beds
Green, lush grass is undeniably stunning, especially when you’ve worked hard to create and maintain the flourishing lawn of your dreams. But when that grass starts creeping into your flower beds and popping up where it isn’t supposed to be, it suddenly becomes an unwanted weed. And while hardy, healthy grass is what every landscape-conscious homeowner desires, the same qualities that make your turf strong and robust can make errant grass difficult to get rid of.
If you’re struggling to remove unwanted grass from various areas of your yard, our Fort Worth landscaping experts are here to help. Below, we’re sharing our tried-and-tested methods for keeping grass out of your flower beds.
Build Hardscape Borders
If you like the look of a physical border between your lawn and flower beds, hardscape borders work wonderfully for keeping grass out of your flower beds. And as a bonus, they’ll also add a lovely aesthetic touch to your yard.
These borders can be created from wood, brick, terra cotta tiles, concrete pavers, or other materials of your choice and are quite simple to maintain. When it comes time to maintain your lawn, you can easily mow adjacent to them or use a string trimmer to cut your grass to the appropriate height.
Create a Border Ditch to Separate the Lawn and Beds
Digging a small ditch between your lawn and garden beds will not only create a clearly defined border between the two but will also help prevent grass from growing alongside your flowers. This no-cost grass-prevention tactic is widely known as English-style edging. It’s easy to maintain and makes it easy to detect blades of grass or other small weeds as soon as they start growing.
After installation, you’ll want to periodically clean out the ditch to keep an excessive amount of debris from accumulating within it. And to maintain the look of your lawn, you can either mow directly over the edge or use a string trimmer to keep the grass at your preferred height.
Put Down Mulch
Like any other plant, grass needs sunlight to grow, and when you put down mulch in your flower beds, you effectively prevent sunlight from getting to fledging weeds.
While this method can be quite effective for keeping grass from growing among your other foliage, particularly robust blades may still pop up. If you choose this tactic, you’ll likely still need to weed periodically, but you’ll have far less to weed than if you didn’t put down anything at all.
Install Landscape Fabric
Also known as weed barrier, landscaping fabric is a breathable — and typically black — almost cloth-like material that creates a physical barrier that plants cannot grow through.
To implement this preventative tactic, you’ll need to install landscape fabric before planting anything in your flower beds. And when you’re ready to plant your flowers or other foliage, simply cut a hole in the fabric with scissors wherever you’d like to put a plant in the ground.
Keep in mind that while this method is effective for preventing grass from growing up into your other foliage, it’s only effective where there are no holes in the fabric. Every hole you cut to install a plant gives unwanted grass an opportunity to pop up. To keep your beds grass-free, you’ll likely still need to pull blades here and there if you choose to implement this method.
Apply Grass Killer
Applying grass killer to errant weeds and blades of grass will kill stubborn intruders right down to the root. This method is super simple, inexpensive, and quick to implement, and you can typically find premixed bottles of grass-killing solution at any of your local garden or hardware suppliers.
Unfortunately, though, chemical-based grass-killing solutions tend to be nonselective, so while they’ll kill your unwanted grass, they may also kill the plants you’d like to keep alive. If you’re looking for a more natural alternative, white vinegar can also work, but even that is quite nonselective, so it’ll likely destroy any plants it comes into contact with.
Hand-Pull Unwanted Patches of Grass
Easy and inexpensive, hand-pulling weeds is a highly effective way to keep grass out of your flower beds. But because hand-weeding beds can be time consuming, this method isn’t appropriate for everyone. And, because hand weeding only solves an errant grass problem temporarily, it’s something you’ll have to engage in frequently to keep your flower beds grass free.
Ideally, you’ll want to implement one or more of the other methods detailed above, and if an errant blade or two pop up, you’ll only need to spend a few minutes pulling them. You can also hire a landscaping maintenance company for routine service and have the pros handle tedious weed pulling for you.
Looking for Landscape Maintenance Pros Near Fort Worth?
Need help getting rid of stubborn grass in your flower beds? Then get in touch with our team at Clearfork Lawn Care today!
We specialize in all things landscaping, including weed control, lawn care, foliage fertilization, tree and shrub trimming, and more and have proudly served the greater Fort Worth area since 2015. Whether you’re looking for help designing and creating the lawn of your dreams or need assistance maintaining the beautiful yard you’ve already got, we’re ready to serve you. To learn more about our lawn maintenance services or get a quote, call us today or contact us online with any questions or concerns, and we’ll get in touch!