Stupid question - but how can I stop grass growing in my borders?

[DailyFailAreTwats]

I'm a total amateur gardener and trying to revive a long neglected garden having moved in in Dec. The past few weeks of sun and rain have meant that everything in the garden has leapt up and I'm lagging behind (oh, I'm pregnant too...).

I keep finding that long grass has invaded my borders and is growing mixed up with established plants (like cornflowers, penstamen etc). Is there any clever way I can discourage/get rid of it save pulling each blade out by hand??

When you have a lawn you must cut the edges i.e. create a definite line where the lawn finishes and maintain it then the grass will not encroach into the flower beds. Hope this helps/makes sense.

Hi Roystonv - it isn't encroaching from the lawn. In some instances there is a paved path in between the lawn and the bed. Its just popping up right in the middle of all my established plants and taking over!

It is probably couch grass rather than lawn grass. Which needs digging out.

I am also finding this a frustration so I am following this with a keen eye. I even put bark on the beds to try and stop it and it doesn't!

Almost certainly couch grass. If you dig it up, you need to dig up all of it. I would use the dreaded WK on it, and then use ground covering annuals.

You could leave the earth bare - useful for any cat visitors, or put bark on it.

Looks like couch grass indeed. Damn. Really hard to get it out when it's all entangled with stuff I want to keep!!

Welcome to the world of gardening.

You can never really get rid of Couch grass or bindweed, you just have to manage it, dig it out where you can and pull it out when it first shows.

Let it grow long and use polythene to isolate the grass, then apply WK to the grass only. Remove the polythene after the WK has had time to be absorbed.

I have this and it is a right pain. It grows through plants and spoils the effect. I treat it as a weed and pull it out. Time consuming and annoying, but yeah all part of the joy of gardening!