Too bad it isn't tasty. I could feed a whole county on this crap. I hate it.

I'm considering a professional lawn service next spring to nail the seeds before they spawn. Yeeech.

bakemom, I could feed a whole country on it too! Why can't it be like collard greens or something?! I have been reading up on some things and may try corn gluten meal as a pre emergent but I am not going to solely rely on it because I have read conflicting reviews as well.

I've used thick, corrugated cardboard topped with 3-4 inches of cedar bark mulch to smother crabgrass. It works to an extent, at least enough so I mostly only have to pull small bits around the edges. Any that does come up through the cardboard--and some does--gets doused with vinegar which kills everything but isn't toxic to the soil or above-ground bees/butterflies. While the vinegar kills whatever it touches, it won't actually disintegrate the weeds--they'll die but still remain where they were growing so if you want tidy, you'll still have to yank their lifeless stems/leaves out. I don't bother.

For particularly stubborn areas, I've actually laid a second layer of cardboard topped with more mulch in the following year and that appears to have smothered 90% of what was growing under it except around the edges. Same technique with the vinegar keeps those clear.

I forgot - I use regular Heinz white cider vinegar. I buy about 10 big 2 1/2 gallon jugs of it at Costco every year and keep them in my garage. I pour it into a plastic bowl with a lip and a handle so it's easier to pour along the edges of the beds. It will run down a slope so it's a little easier to control using the bowl to pour it from. Around my mailbox there's a lot of creeping charlie so I pour the vinegar there every 3-4 weeks. Rain will wash the vinegar away so it's not a permanent solution. It just allows me to kill the weeds without much physical effort while at the same time allowing me to (a) sleep nights; and (b) thumb my nose at Monsanto.

A thick (8 sheets) layer of newspaper works even better than cardboard, in my opinion. At least it seems to last longer for me. Then 2-3 inches of mulch on top of that. That's what I have between all the roses in my rose border. It keeps the soil around the roses cool and damp, and I don't see any weeds all season. The only drawback (if you can call it that) is that I have to refresh the newspaper and mulch every spring. But I'd rather do it once and be done with it in cooler weather than have to go out and suffer the heat and humidity all summer pulling or spraying.

I'm about to go Rambo on crab grass, too. I don't mind it in the garden as much because I have kept up on weeding, but it crops up between stones in my stone path and I can't rip it up by the roots. I was just myself marveling at the fact that they call it an annual. I'm considering looking into something to prevent the seeds from germinating (is that the same as a pre-emergent?) in the spring, but how long do those treatments last? You want them to last long enough to kill crabgrass seeds, but I don't want to stop other things from germinating, like violas and the seeds of other creepers I have in between the stones.

I did do landscape tarp covered by 4-6" of mulch to kill the crab grass in my beds. It was the main grower in that bed. I left it on for a whole growing season, and it worked very well. I was also willing to kill other stuff in an attempt to get rid of the crab grass! Tarp is a pain if you have to work around tons of existing plants. In that case I would definitely do newspaper or cardboard covered by mulch. I'd prefer newspaper because it's easier to manipulate around plants. A tip I was given was to wet the newspaper when you're putting it down so it stays better. As lois said, use several sheets. If it's a thin layer the crabgrass will rip right through it. Beware that if you are really and truly overrun, as my garden was, you'll still have crabgrass coming up amongst the roots of your plants. The only way I've found to get rid of that is by bare rooting, and I've had to do a lot. Too afraid to do Roundup selectively because I don't want to inadvertently kill the desired perennial plant. I can't figure out how to bareroot daylilies and Siberian irises, though. Those thick roots hide weeds well.

gardenweed, I'm into that vinegar thing. I already buy it in bulk for cleaning, so I'm going to check it our for weeding now.

I am definitely going to try the newspaper, cardboard and mulch trick then. The vinegar sounds look a good idea for the pesky ones that make it out alive.

gardenweed I love your a and b reasons!

lois, yes pulling in heat and humidity just makes me feel defeated.

deanna yes girl we are about to go Rambo on crabgrass's ass! LOL

Can I do all the layering of newspaper and/or cardboard with mulch this fall?

Thanks you all so much for all of your help.

Gladys

The only drawback (if you can call it that) is that I have to refresh the newspaper and mulch every spring.

For me, the newspaper wasn't as easy to work with since it broke down too quickly (even tho' I used 30 sheets as opposed to just 8) and when I dug through it to plant, I ended up with small bits of it on top of the mulch which I found annoying.

I do the cardboard/mulch work whenever it needs doing which has generally been early spring the past couple of years but I don't think it really matters when you do it--you're still smothering the weeds/crabgrass by blocking their source of light/air/water. One more tip: be sure to overlap the edges of the cardboard/newspaper or the weeds will travel along under it until they find an opening. Ask me how I know this to be true.

I only yank it out of my veggie garden, and for this season only I have a mountain of the @#$% that is literally 5 foot high and 15 foot across at the base, and it is nothing but the runner grass (what I call crabgrass). I won't compost it b/c I don't want to put it back into my garden when I through w/ the season and it is all dry I'll load it in the truck and take it to my brother in laws in the country and have a big bon fire

Kassaundra - thanks for bringing that up--I don't compost anything that's annoying, invasive or vining. I throw the weeds/vines/grass into the garbage & take it to the dump where hopefully they'll never be able to germinate again. In warm weather I toss a quarter cup of ammonia in the garbage bag too. Eliminates odors and kills whatever germs/organisms might be in there.

Call me crazy but I sure wish Ken Burns would do a special on how we ever got addicted to LAWNS.

Well, I was going to answer last night but waited. I have a total mess. For the grass in the garden areas close to plants, I will get some Ortho Grass B Gon. Fertilome makes a similar product but haven't tried it. Ortho works but dies slowly. It was off the market last year.

You can use Preen in beds as a pre-emergent, but wouldn't use it in the garden areas if you want volunteer seeds. Also I couldn't use a pre-emergent because some areas in the lawn, I'd sprinkled grass seed. And it helped to sprinkle that seed even if I've still got a mixture.

Now for the rest of the big bad weeds which I'm tired from cutting down, I will try the vinegar in my pump sprayer, so thanks for that suggestion and testimonial. That way I can bring it in the house to clean it out. Roundup I don't want to put it in my pump sprayer or rinse it near the house, have to go 3 times rinsing.

I may use some RU in smaller spray bottles for certain areas and make a shield with a gallon milk jug cut open at the bottom and widen the top & improvise with other stuff.

The rest I'll tackle with the shovel like some horrid dandelions I've spotted. I don't have time to wait for the mulching except in a couple of spots. A lot I cut down today had seed tassles, and I don't want to compost them so will separate them out. They may continue to ripen, and I hate for it to end up in the city compost bags we put out. I surely picked up some of this nasty stuff from their compost. I'd like to throw whole bags of it on beds because they need it but hate to start some horrid stuff all over again especially some really nasty clover variety I got a few seasons back. Grass B Gon will only do all kinds of grass, not weeds. And we had to use strong stuff on that clover in the lawn which got on some of my plants. But the big nasty kind is gone. And most of the two kinds of nasty grass that spreads with runners I've fought for years is gone!

I swear, I've got grass that got away from me in my compost area almost like corn leaves with huge wavy seedheads, kind of pretty but nasty to reseed. Maybe it's the stuff pioneers saw on the prairies, fits the descriptions I've read.

Kassandra, 5 ft high!!! Wow that is one hellava lot of crabgrass. I would love to be present when you burn the crap out of it.
gardenweed, how thick does the cardboard need to be? I have lots of empty moving/storage boxes in the attic that I can use and can get a bunch more from my job as well.

Gladys

I have seriously thought about starting an internet rumor, how scientists have just discovered the active ingredient in a certain little blue pill that the site won't let me name was found in runner grass in a very specific location (my back yard!!!!!)

ladygladys - thick, corrugated cardboard, preferably without glossy ink all over it, is best. I try to put any printing on the up side and put the plain brown side down. Moving boxes work fine. I helped some friends haul water-damaged things from their flooded cellar to the dump but the stacks of cardboard I brought home for use under mulch. Anything with glossy ink will eventually still go to the recycle bin but the plain brown flattened boxes are being used under mulch.

I had to have a new water heater installed back in December but saved the box it came in for the cats to play in. This spring I brought it out and cut it into pieces with a box cutter. I needed to cut the pieces in pointy triangles for the curved edge of the bed in front of the house. Sharp blade in the box cutter made it easy to do. Any crabgrass that comes up along the edges gets doused with vinegar. So far this season I've only had to use the vinegar twice in that bed--the rest of the time I yank the 1 or 2 CGs that pop up before they get any size to them.

These all have mulch-over-cardboard to control weeds/crabgrass + hold in moisture:
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I redid this bed back in May and laid cardboard over my balloon flowers. When they sprouted, they raised the cardboard & mulch up about 10 inches and it was the "dome" forming that made me realize I'd covered them.
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The hosta bed to the right of the walkway got done back in the spring of this year. The hostas are full size this late in the season, as is everything growing to the left of the walkway, so you can't see much mulch.
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OMG, your pictures are gorgeous! Do you have a photobucket/flickr page with more pics? I can definitely see that the cardboard/mulch does work against the weeds. Wow the balloon flowers are strong to be able to do that! What is the plant to the right of the birdbath in the first pic?

Thanks ladygladys! I was disappointed with those photos which is why I haven't posted them before. They were taken back in May but to me they looked washed out so I didn't post them. I posted them now so you could see the way the mulch over cardboard has worked. I shot the same views this morning and as soon as I upload them from the camera I'll post them here.

The plant beside the birdbath in the 1st photo is Phlox divaricata/woodland phlox. It's a spring bloomer--my son & DIL gave it to me for Mother's Day. It's not only the most gorgeous true blue, it also has a heavenly fragrance which is what made my DIL pick it out for me. She said she couldn't walk past it and was going back to the nursery to get one for herself.

Here's a closeup:
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A few more shots taken the same day:

Butterfly bed
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The white flowers in the foreground growing out of the white pot are iberis/candytuft:
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Reclaimed area behind my garage
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gardenweed, your house and grounds are so gorgeous! Thanks for posting the wonderful pics and reinforcing the cardboard mulch and vinegar.

I did a little googling, and it does seem Blue Paradise opens blue in the morning, then goes to more purple during the day, then as evening temps cool down, back to blue. From google images, it looks like shade helps. It appears to be a very sought after variety of phlox.

I don't know why I have such an instinct to cram. Maybe it is the cottage garden thing with me. But the plants look so nice when they're given breathing room and much easier to mulch and control weeds.

Oh my house is the same color of blue, but I like the situation of your property much better than mine, looks like you're out in the country but maybe just have a large lot in town.

I agree with aliska your property is really beautiful! That phlox is to die for! I am a sucker for blue flowers.

Now you say you do cardboard & mulch again each spring. Do you just lay the cardboard over the preexisting mulch from last year or move that mulch around & recover cardboard with that same mulch?

Thanks for answering all my questions,
Gladys

I bought an organic crab grass killer on eBay for super cheap and it works like a dream! Someone ended up not needing it, and got rid of it for $10 and it normally sells for $40. I sprinkle it on before it rains. Just a touch and in two weeks it's dead!

aliska12000 - thanks for the compliment. I work very hard on curb appeal partly because it pleases my own eyes as well as those who pass by. I am out in the country in a small town where just about everyone puts a lot of effort into maintaining their gardens so they look tidy and well-tended. My neighbor just 3 houses to the north was featured on last year's local garden tour. We're not in competition with one another as we both love to garden. She's begun adding shade plants and was thrilled when I divided some astilbes last year since I gave her several of the divisions. I also winter sowed apple & pear tree seeds for her husband. He gave me seeds from the trees he picked fruit from when he was a kid up in Vermont. I gave him seedlings for each of the seeds he gave me.

The oval bed where the candytuft is growing was here when I moved to this house but I've been working to make it more eye-catching. Originally there were two large, plain green hosta in it along with an ornamental grass that grew 6 ft. tall every year. The hostas & grass are long gone--I got rid of those and planted WS perennials, coral bells, artemesia, dwarf fountain grass & daylilies. A butterfly bush planted in the center drew in a hummingbird yesterday!

"I don't know why I have such an instinct to cram."

Those pictures were taken in May before most of my plants were up. If you saw those same beds today, you'd know I cram plants into them just like most cottage gardeners!

Gladys - I lay new cardboard and mulch over top of whatever's already there. I'm careful to keep both away from the crown of the plants but the mulch goes on thick whenever I have enough of/can afford it. I have a small area that's about to get layer #3 pretty soon because layers #1 & #2 haven't been successful at smothering the (bleep)ing violets. I actually used a paint brush to paint the vinegar on the leaves since they're growing so close to my plants. Two days later the violets were still going strong--almost as if they were laughing at me. That tells me the vinegar needs to reach the roots in order to kill the weeds.

I'm another sucker for blue flowers, ergo the woodland phlox, Blue Paradise phlox paniculata, columbine, Jack Frost brunnera, Virginia bluebells, baptisia, balloon flower and great blue lobelia I'm growing.

Here's the bed that's currently under construction. I call this La Musardiere - A Place to Be Idle. There are 30+ clumps of daylilies, 10 mature peonies, Russian sage, rose of Sharon, Echinacea & a few others already planted in this bed, bordered by a 40 ft. long row of white hydrangea. My mother planted the lilac on the right. I added the granite bench last year.
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It has taken me almost 6 years to reclaim this bed from the weeds that were in control for the previous 15-20 years. There's heavy cardboard topped with mulch in this bed as well but I have to constantly yank out invasive vines & crabgrass. The vinegar works but it's such a large area I have trouble staying on top of it.

Gardenweed, if you want presicion application of vinegar to the root area of the violets have you tried a cooking basting needle / syringe?

gardenweed, it is so beautiful there. I've only been there once on the way to Cape Cod on a family trip as a kid. From the main hwy, not any place one would want to be but I know there are some beautiful places there and so steeped in history. My family line (patrilineal) goes back to Old Saybrook in the 1600's. My xxth gr grandfather was granted land from the Indian wars, a sore subject now.

Well, I showed my daughter your beautiful photos, and she said why didn't I buy a place out there. Because it's too expensive.

Now I put in some sweat equity trying out the vinegar. Just going for the shorter stuff for starters. I wanted to get it applied while the sun was still on it so we shall see. Full strength white.

Then I've been trying to get on top of the taller weed problem. Tonight was cutting out branches of a rose bush that has gotten way too large (like 8' tall and almost that wide) and untidy.

I know you shouldn't covet, but how I'd love to have a place like yours closer to here and have all that land, looks at least an acre and probably more. That last photo, keeping the vines out will be the hardest. I think it will be a never ending battle but at least you can keep them out of the planted part. It lurks for years.

I've fought Boston Ivy, finally got it all off the house and garage and stays off, but I'm still finding that sneaky stuff trying to trick me. I pull it as fast as I see it. Also that Virginia Creeper which isn't as ubiquitous but snaps off when you try to pull it. Have a nice grape vine show up in back, think it is regular grapes but no place for it to climb and doubt it can be transplanted. Also a 3-leafed one, I pulled some twice with my bare hands, know poison ivy, think this is not it. I'd really better be on guard for poison ivy to crop up, so much blows in here I wouldn't expect. That's enough whining about stuff.

I need an id on something and have the wrong lens on my camera for it so will try to get to that. It's gotten mixed in with my daylilies, is thinner-leafed with a crease in the center. I'm afraid it's too similar to lily leaves to use Grass b Gon. I'll try to get a photo, hate to take that one lens off now that I decided to work with it again, I took most of the butterfly photos with it. I took 93 and only about 6 or 7 were any good at all. Lucky I got what I did but the worst I've ever done with duds.