Weeds are probably your greatest concern this time of year, as the heat outside and your watering schedule prompts them to pop their ugly heads out and try to take over your lawn, garden, and landscape. If the first thing that crossed your mind was the use of herbicides and fertilizers, we should remind you that heat and chemicals don’t get along well – during hot summer months fertilizers can burn and damage the soil, grasses, or vegetation roots. Moreover, if you also cultivate vegetables, berries, fruity shrubs or trees you already know the use of chemicals isn’t the healthiest way to go. Today we invited our lawn care Palm Coast FL specialists to tell you how to keep weeds at bay and away from your lawn and landscape with the help of some organic measures.

Mulch, Mulch, Mulch

Mulch doesn’t eradicate weeds, but it is a good defense system that smothers their growth and spreading. Controlling weed germination and expansion is the right way to go according to our lawn care Palm Coast FL team – at least until the weather and the environmental factors allow you to safely use mixtures and substances. So let’s see some things about mulch – especially because we have talked about it before.

Moist Mulch: it actually acts as a fertilizer, so you are right to wonder how it can also deter weeds. Actually, moist mulch is an indirect organic weed control strategy: it keeps the grasses’ and plants’ roots cool, nourished, and humid, thus allowing them to gain the necessary resilience to any weed attack. Even if you deal with a weed infestation, your trees and flower beds will have the necessary strength to overcome it.

Dry Mulch: this mulch variety is, in fact, more like a barrier keeping sprouting weeds away from your trees, flowers, and ornamentals. Since it is used less as fertilizer, it does act as a protective wall.

Inorganic Mulch: ask your lawn care Palm Coast FL specialists about the best type of inorganic mulch to use as weed barrier as some varieties can actually smother weeds completely, stopping them from germinating.

Let Dormant Weeds Sleep

Weeds can’t wait for the proper conditions to pop up and take over – and your regular lawn care activities can encourage such behavior:

  • During summer it is best to keep intensive lawn maintenance activities to their lowest level: soil aeration, digging, tree removals, plant relocation, and large new cultivations.
  • If you want to add new plants to your landscape, talk to your lawn care Palm Coast FL specialists to help you as they will know how to dig, aerate, water, plant, and fertilize without promoting weed growth.

As a last piece of advice, make sure you don’t bring weeds at home when you buy potted plants or new seeds. Besides shopping only from reputable nurseries, have your Palm Coast FL specialists assess the new plants, flowers, and seeds you bring home for weed seeds or small weeds’ sprouts. The last thing you want is to make room to the enemy on your own property with your own hands.