Newbie help

[ilkleymoorbartat]

Im a gardening novice and after some help please! Sorry if these are really basic questions.

1. We have some flower beds that are overgrown with weeds but also have some nice plants in that we want to keep. How do we go about clearing all the weeds without damaging the plants we want to keep?

2. some of the weeds are really pervasive. Things like wild garlic and green alkanet that are just taking over everything. How do we keep ok too of them going forward?

3. we have some perennialsthings like verbenas that look dead. (Really dry ) how do we know if they'll come back this year? Thank you!

Sorry typing on phone. That's meant to say *keep on top of them

First the verbena, hang on a bit, keep watching for a bit of green at the base. You can cut back the old stems now and look to see if the centre of the stem looks dry or greenish. If dry it could be the end but I would give them another week or two or even a month to get going, it has been a cold spring.

wild garlic and alkanet will survive a nuclear explosion, so you just have to keep at them, dig up what you can (alkanet has deep roots) then just keep pulling up, cutting back and never letting them seed.

Ok really helpful thanks so much! And I'm just guessing I should just pull up any weeds around existing plants that we want to keep? And just do that on repeat?

Yes, you’ve got it!

Are you gardening anywhere near Rombalds Moor?

When you pull up the weeds make sure you get all the root out - not just the top of the plant. Tease around the plants you want to keep with a hand fork. And yes, you’ll have to keep at it, I spend half my gardening time digging up wild geum. Minimise bare earth - the more plants you have the less space you have for weeds.

I agree with not having big patches of bare earth. If you don't put a plant there to grow then nature will and it'll invariably be a weed you don't want! Either plant densely or mulch the beds with something like decorative bark (or you can use gravel/slate but this obviously doesn't rot away and improve the soil.)

Other than that it really is just keeping on top of weeding and making sure you don't let any weeds go to seed as otherwise they'll self seed in your garden and you'll have even more to deal with next year. The more you hoe or pull up weeds, the more you weaken them so it does get easier over time.

Sadly not @MereDintofPandiculation !

Thank you so much everyone this is all really helpful. It's hard to know where to start when you're not very confident!