5 Easy Steps to a Weed Free Garden

Now before you think this has been posted in the wrong section, I haven't!
I should just say that I am posting this beaming with pride at my dear wife, who is at present embarking upon an article-writing career.
She has already had interest from a newspaper local to us and had praise from an Editor at The Independent!

Anyhow, this is one of her recent little pieces, and I thought it appropriate to GYO, what with us being gardeners as all...:
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5 Easy Steps to a Weed Free Garden

See me writing, reading a book, talking on the phone or staring off into space and ask me what I am doing, and you may be answered with “I am weeding my garden” and a self deprecating roll of the eyes. Here is my explanation; one that I hope will be helpful in all the above situations and indeed, in your garden.

Step 1: Define a weed. A weed is a flower, or plant, that grows where it is unwanted. A weed can be beautiful, and in the right place, desirable. Ask yourself, is it beautiful? Is it doing any harm, a blot on the landscape, or hindering the growth of a beloved camellia you have cultivated? Does it have to go only because the label on the bottle from the DIY shop includes it in its list of targets? If indeed your weed must go then by all means, continue with Step 2.

Step 2: Work in order of priority. If you treasure a vegetable patch, or an old rose, above all else in your garden then be especially vigilant in that area. You do not want Old Man’s Beard or Grandfather Pop-Out of Bed to stifle a valued plant that is reaching for the sunshine. Tend to the home fires first, and then radiate outwards into the wider garden.

Step 3: With weeds you must be gentle but firm. Gone are the days when we can spray chemicals the likes of which haven’t been seen since the 1960’s, willy-nilly, all over the place. We understand now that while we wish to rid ourselves of harmful weeds, we do not necessarily want the starlings to fall from the sky as well. Obliteration is not a word lightly bandied about in the gardening world. Instead use your hands, use “friendlier” chemicals, that will not kill all and sundry; only that pesky dandelion in the middle of your velvet lawn. Think of the other plants and creatures who share your garden. But be warned – some weeds are the sort who will take an acre when you give a border, and they must be rid of for a healthy, well balanced garden to flourish.

Step 4: Dispose of the weeds carefully. Much as we might sometimes feel tempted, chucking them over the fence to the neighbour’s garden is not helpful. Firstly and selfishly, you will not get away with it. They will know, and hate you for it. And anyway, weeds crawl, (didn’t you know?), migrate and boomerang. They will end up back in your garden soon enough and then what? You have made an enemy for naught. There are many fine methods of disposing of weeds. My method of choice is to offer them as midnight snacks to the four rabbits who live in a large enclosure at the bottom of my garden; done like that I am adding a shine to my halo whilst completing a household task.

Step 5: Repeat ad infinitum.

I follow these 5 Steps in my garden, and in my mind, which is of course the garden of your own entity. So that is how reading a book, listening to music, or making a phone call to say I’m sorry, or even, I’m not sorry, can be weeding your garden. The thoughts that wind and bind the more becoming aspects of my personality need taking care of (see Step 5). I think some people have flawless lawns and tidy borders. There can be intricate symmetrical hedges leading in a maze to a centre where you find… what? Or is your patch a wild English garden where weeds are more often gently restrained than banned altogether, adding a harmony? Then there is the desert garden, which seems barren at first but then you spot the tiny and ferocious bits of life teeming in the sand and rocks.

One thing you can be sure of, when it comes to gardens is that there is always more than meets the eye.