Apart from pulling on clothes that just came out of the dryer, deciding to eat a second bowl of cereal or getting a hole in one at a crazy golf course, the best feeling ever is knowing your lawn is superior to your neighbours. It’s the ultimate bragging right. An unspoken acceptance that makes you instantly superior, and that feels great. The problem is: your neighbour’s unruly lawn could in fact undermine all your lawn care efforts.
That’s because the weeds infesting their garden can actually start to impact yours, colonising your lawn in more ways than one. It could be a windy day that causes germinating weed seeds to float across to your garden or they could just spread beneath the fence into your beds. Either way, your pristine lawn could be under threat.
To prevent this kind of attack from happening, here are six simple ways to keep your neighbours weeds out of your garden.
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Improve Your Edging
A lot of the time, weeds are able to spread further afield through their root system, making your lawn vulnerable to lawn problems and diseases. To defend against this, your best option is to add an underground barrier that will deter your neighbours lawn problems from impacting your space. From steel to plastic to composite edging, the choice is yours. Alternatively, you could grab your flat-tip spade, dig a V-shaped ditch along your borders and then fill that with mulch.
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Thicken Up Your Hedges To Protect Your Garden
We know what you’re thinking: airborne weed seeds could just float through these, but you’d be surprised at how good thick hedges are at being barriers. The trick is planting something like a yew or privet, both of which will stop dandelions doing their thing. Of course, weeds can still spread beneath a hedge, so combat those weeds by adding some mulch beneath your hedge with an extra two inches of stone or wood chip to act as an additional barrier.
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Pre-Emergent Herbicides Are Handy
We wish it were possible, but no amount of hedging or edging can prevent every single weed seed from making it into your garden. But that’s where pre-emergent herbicides come in. In short: they’ll stop these infiltrating seeds from germinating. Simply get yourself a pre-emergent herbicide, such as corn starch, and spread it around your lawn in early spring. That way you’ll be crabgrass and weed-free over the summer and following growth season.
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Leave No Bare Ground
When you leave a space in your garden bare, weeds are going to swoop in and occupy this space before you can even boil the kettle. It’s essentially Mother Nature’s way of stopping erosion, and we respect that. But instead of letting weeds do that job, cover any bare patches with some landscaping fabric and then add a few inches of rocks or mulch, either wood chips or pebbles. Sure, some weeds will still find a way to germinate the mulch, but that landscaping fabric you put down first, that will make it almost impossible for those weeds to put down any roots, making them easy to combat with your hands. Boom.
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Grow A Healthy Lawn
The thicker, lusher and healthier your lawn is, the more it will be able to defend itself against your neighbours weeds. So basically keep your lawn in a great condition by aerating, scarifying, fertilising and watering your lawn. By doing this, your lawn will grow a thick sward with deep roots, both of which will crowd out any weeds and prevent them from rooting.
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Refer Them To Joe’s & Get £40 OFF
Yepp. You read that right. Instead of battling against your neighbour’s unruly excuse for a lawn, the best thing you could do is walk over there, knock on their door, hand them a beer and then talk to them about our epic referral scheme. What is that? Well, simply refer them to Joe’s and both of you will get £20 off your annual lawn care programme. That’s £40 off. And, who knows, maybe the most incredible friendship will bloom in a place where garden rivalry has stood for so long.
Thanks for reading Joe’s blog on how to “6 Ways to Keep The Neighbour’s Weeds Out of Your Garden”. For more lawn care tips and tricks, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.