How to get rid of the weeds in your yard in 3 strategic steps.
Do you get anxiety over the weeds currently overtaking your yard?
Current yard and landscape practices actually encourage weeds, despite the many promises of low maintenance care and “weed-blocking” fabric (hint: the weed fabric doesn’t work).
“If weeds constantly overrun you garden rows, ask yourself what those are and why they are growing there. Put down the hoe long enough to consider what the weeds are telling you.”
—Sarah Owens
Consider yourself officially invited to a world where weeding is not your constant chore.
Let’s unpack why popular yard practices are letting you down.
The vast majority of yards today are in a constant state of diminishing soil quality. Common practices include:
Scraping the topsoil away during construction and hauling it off to get dumped at another site.
Laying down landscaping fabric or plastic.
Raking up leaves, sometimes mulch, and other organic materials and throwing them away, off-site.
Mulching with rocks, uniform or manufactured bark products, or sometimes rubber.
Installing and maintaining lawns.
All of these examples deplete the organic matter available in the soil and lead to depleted and compacted soil.
Plants typically considered as “weeds” tend to be the ones that have survived by growing in tough places. They thrive in depleted, compacted soil.
Regardless of the quality of your soil, the plants that have chosen to grow there did so for a reason: the environment was right for their growing conditions.
To literally address the root cause of a weed problem, you need to know what type of plant species you are dealing with, why it is there, and how it spreads.
Step 1 — Identify the plant species.
Identify the genus and species of the plants growing in your yard; this will unlock so much information for you. Find the species with a reverse image search or an app like iNaturalist and then search by the full scientific name (for example: the common dandelion species is Taraxacum officinale).
The exact species will give you the information you can use to effectively strategize.
What are this plant’s growth characteristics? Is this weed a known invasive or noxious weed in the area that you are growing in? Is it poisonous? Does it have any uses? How does it spread; by root or by seed? Do local experts recommend specific steps for the removal or handling of this plant?
For example, the genus Plantago (seen above) commonly grows in yards and cities. This plant likes compacted soil and can serve as an indicator that your soil needs more organic matter and less foot traffic. The plant is easy to handle because it spreads by seed. This makes it super easy to manage by simply addressing the conditions where it is growing.
Step 2 — Test your soil.
Do you know what your soil conditions are like?
I highly recommend sending a soil sample to a lab for testing (or conducting a few at-home tests). You can order tests for soil texture, macro and micronutrient content, pH, and potential heavy metal contaminant levels.
At home, you can check macronutrient and pH levels with home kits available at local nurseries or online. I also recommend checking the water retention rate with a perc test and the texture with a ‘jar test’.
These details are the key to forming an effective action plan.
Step 3 — Combine what you know about your weeds & your soil to form a strategy.
Now that you’ve identified your weeds and tested your soil, do you see any correlations between the two? What about this environment encourages this plant to grow here? Why have these plants chosen to grow in this soil? What would make this environment less hospitable to the weeds and more hospitable to the plants you’re interested in growing?
What kind of ecosystem do I need to design to encourage the plant life I do want to grow here?
Make a soil-building plan based on all of the information you now have! Research the soil needs of the plants you either already have planted or want to plant. Add amendments to your soil based on the data from your soil test. Emulate nature — use practices that encourage the health and soil structure of forest floors or wildflower prairies. For example, I have found great success for most weed problems by lasagna mulching, or sheet mulching. You may be surprised at how much difference your work will make in just a season or two!
Nature responds to the conditions it is given. So, stop weeding. Start building ecosystems.
If you’re interested in learning more, keep a look out for our upcoming online courses — our next course will be on simplified soil science, where we will follow a 3 phase, step-by-step plan to identify the patterns and problems in your yard and follow an effective action plan to build healthy, low-maintenance soil.
