grass has invaded, cleaning it out

by Carol
(Door County, WI)

I have a mostly shady area by my house, I 've cleaned it out & added soil then planted some flowers a few years ago. It did have grass before I started. Before I knew it the grass came back. Is there any way to completely get rid of the grass? I have an idea to plant that side of the house with Hosta's would this help kill some of the grass?
Carol

Doug says that grass in perennial beds is one of the big problems with growing these kinds of plants. There are literally no chemicals that will work on grass and leave all perennials safely growing. So you get to hand control the grass.

Once you eliminate it all, then I recommend a heavy mulch (3 inches thick) to help hold the moisture in, add organic matter to the soil as it degrades and prevent weeds and grass from becoming established quickly.

I weed anything out as soon as I see it and stop grass from getting established.

Because if I don't - my garden will wind up like yours is now and I'll have to either spend hours in there pulling each grass plant or dig it all up and start again.

And the really bad news is no matter what the marketers tell you - no perennial plant is going to stop grass from invading. A thick perennial stand might slow it down a bit from establishing but grass will come.

My advice to you is to decide right up front that you're going to spend the money on mulching those beds and then clean them out - start all over again. Or, clean them out and then apply mulch. (mulch will not smother out established grass)

Good luck.