yard question and mini-rant

[threadwalker]

I am working on the front yard. It gets water, sunlight and therefore needs weeding. Previous owners let the golden poopies run amuck, but I don't know how they did that without also letting the weeds run amuck. I've discovered that tearing up the weeds just tears out the poopies at the same time. And they both sprout as fast as ... weeds.

Anyway, overall on-going.

I weeded, dug, scraped, and turned up the soil. Weeds were removed. Black weed suppressant fabric was laid down. Holes were cut for a few existing plants. Bark was put in place. 2 weeks later, weeds are poking up through the fabric and bark.

WTF??? What did I do wrong?

And they continue to pop up in waves like small green tentacles trying to sneak some sunlight. Grrrr....

In after-the-fact passenger sort of way, the Hubby said I shoulda sprayed chemical weed-death first. That didn't occur to me and even if it had, how do you do that without killing the plants I want to keep? I'm so pissed. The whole purpose of this was to NOT have to weed. Hence the back-breaking weeding and soil tilling that lead up to this. And now the area is covered in bark and ground cloth, so it's not even easy to rip it up and do a fix.

In the meantime, I am now weeding my barked area every few days and getting a lovely collection of slivers on the backs of my knuckles.

RAWR!!! fricking weeds.

Comments

[hrj.livejournal.com]

And then -- just when you've been successful -- the weed seeds from your neighbor's yard will settle in for a new go-round. (I have a neighbor who, on seeing my feral fennel, warned me that if I didn't eradicate it, she would come into my yard and tear it all out. I was seriously taken aback by this and, if we hadn't previously had some very good relations, I might have pointed out forcefully that she was threatening illegal trespass. But I guess I can at least empathize.)