Tackling flower bed

tomhammer..

Can I start on the below now and do I need to pull everything up or simply spray with roundup ?

Is it a matter of topping up the level with bags of topsoil and setting flowers in it

Is it too early for this job and what's the correct procedure

TIA

looksee

You have a plague of creeping buttercup. I have a PhD in digging up creeping buttercup! You have two of the most persistant nuisance weeds in that bed.

Yes its the right time of year to clear the bed. However spraying it at this time of year is not the most successful because it is not growing vigorously enough, in spite of the coverage in the bed, and you would still have to pull out the dead roots.

Dig, (easier after a couple of dry days) lift the roots, shake off as much soil as you can and dispose of them, either in your brown bin or possibly bag them in black sacks and let them rot down. At least the buttercup comes up roots and all. You have some scutch in there too (the grass) which you need to dig up every tiny bit of white root that you can, it will sprout again from the smallest bit. I would then leave it for maybe a month, then take out any surviving buttercup and scutch that sprout. There will be other weeds too, but that's an on-going situation.

At that stage you can put on some topsoil or compost with John Innes, dig it in a bit and plant your plants. Suggest you then top it off with woodchip mulch.

tomhammer..

Ok thanks very much for that informative reply

I'll get started on it

greasepalm

Keep an eye on weather cold spell also , yes i was looking at early weeds poking their heads up again.

SuperBowserWorld

Roundup will only help for a bit, and then they'll be back stronger than ever. Also, it's questionable how bad it is for you as well as your garden. So, do some manual weeding as described above. Looks like a small area.

tomhammer..

Dig them up with the fork and shake off the soil ?

Is that the best method

Also is it best to fit a sheet of.some.sort.to stop weeds springing up around the flowers ?

looksee

I think most people here would vote against using weedproof membrane on a flowerbed - well it would be impossible on a flower bed, might be of some use on a shrub bed. Even then over time it becomes more of a hinderance than a help and ends up being pulled off. Keep it for paths.

tomhammer..

Ok Thanks again

tomhammer..

Does a soil sieve work well

I've taken out the weeds

Will it take out the bits and pieces out of the soil ?

greasepalm

Yes depending on the grade/size of holes .

I had 3 years ago for getting stones out and the smaller you went the finer it got for seed sowing.

Roots and stones and any weeds with a leaf or 2 can be put to one side.

lucalux

If you've cleared the weeds i wouldn't leave bare soil this time of year, dandelions will be soon flowering and spreading seeds, and all the other lovely weeds we have

One way of keeping the weeds at bay is to get cardboard, wetting it beforehand is much better, and leave it down on the soil, block out light and stop seeds settling.

You can move it around as you plant the bed up, or mulch over it for a better option than weed membrane

Keeping an eye on the bed as you plant for the next couple of months and hoeing/weeding will hopefully keep a lot of the worst of it from coming back in

Whatever's to the left of that bed, i'd be looking to put in a physical barrier of some kind to lessen any chance of it spreading back in. A favourite of mine is broken slates inserted vertically into the soil and overlapped, makes it easy to pull before the make their way to soil and root

tomhammer..

Ya I knew about the cardboard

looksee

I wouldn't be too keen on sieving soil for a bed, it gets too fine and cakes over. Any stones that are too small to be worth picking off are too small to be a problem, and a few stones improves drainage. I only use sieved soil for seed trays.

tomhammer..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121884698#Comment_121884698

It's the bits of plant weed there's a lot of it

I had an interesting conversation with a neighbour/farmer about sieving soil when we were planting our hedges. The ground was quite stony and we took a lot out and he thought this was madness. His point was ( rightly or wrongly) that the stones hold onto heat in the winter when the ground is frozen thus giving more warmth and protection to the plants. Never heard that one before!

tomhammer..

It's the bits of weed I'm sieving?

I've pulled them all up but there's bits left , do they need to be sieved out ?

looksee

If they are just bits of leaf and stem, and bits of fibrous root with no growing point then you can ignore them. Keep an eye on them and remove if they look lively. If they are bits of jointed root, usually white, then they would need to be removed. I still think sieving is overkill and does not improve the soil. It would be better - and easier - to dig it over again, removing anything suspect as you go. Do it on a dry day when the soil has dried out a bit so it is more friable (crumbly).

You are going to get weeds anyway, from seed if nothing else. All you can do is catch them before they get too big.

tomhammer..

Thanks for that