Grass in borders - are there any plants that will outcompete?!

[hamustro]

I've got a lot of grass in my borders and digging it out is like try to hold back the tide. I had a gardener come and sort it out and kept on top of it for a while by pulling it out by hand, but after a couple of weeks of neglecting it due to work, weather etc. it's back with a vengeance. My neighbours have some variety of tall, fast spreading grass planted right up against our fence, so it keeps working its way through.

Realistically, I'm not going to be able to keep up with hand weeding over the long term. It's not very fun as the grass is between some thorny bushes, the neighbour's cats poo in it, and to be honest I'm just too lazy!

I'm wondering if I could plant something - I'm not sure what - to give a bit of ground coverage in the borders, and not leave much room for the grass to work its way in. Will this work, and does anyone have any suggestions as to what I could plant? My garden doesn't get much sun.

Thanks all!

Hardy geranium maybe? Though tbh mine have grass in them, it's just less noticeable.

I am interested to see other ideas...

Yellow rattle can be sown directly into the ground now, it feeds of the grass root system and slowly kills it. It’s a wildflower good for pollinators

Is it couch grass?

Not much will out compete it, if so

https://www.rhs.org.uk/weeds/couch-grass

@YouveGotToGrooveIt I've been wondering that and the answer is I'm not sure! It does have those underground rhizome things though, which is why it's been such a pain pulling it up by hand! It goes quite deep. I don't think it's just lawn grass, anyway - each blade is thicker, longer and it grows faster. Is there a definite way to tell?

Look at ground cover plants like vinca minor, creeping thyme, any of the mat-forming types of plants.

It sounds like couch to me!

The only thing I have found is constant vigilence and raking through the soil as soon as a green shoot appears, to pull out all the root pieces I can find!

Commiserations, my allotment has the bloody stuff and I've spent all day today removing it.

Yup couch grass needs digging out, it's the only way. I also fight a constant battle with it on my allotment. Nothing will overpower it, if you plant other things there it will wind itself through their roots and pop up in the middle making it even harder to pull out. I have success with covering the worst patches of couch grass with cardboard to weaken it, dig it out as much as you can then plant in the bed and mulch heavily. Some will still come up but it's easier to see and remove after that.

It is possible to distinguish between grasses, easier when they’re in flower, but you can do it when they’re in leaf if you look at tiny details. Some grasses are easier to recognise in leaf than others, for example cocksfoot has blue-ish leaves and flattened oval stem, Yorkshire fog is softly hairy with “pink pyjamas” - pink stripes at the base of the stem

Oh no! That's a pain. I absolutely don't have the time or energy to keep on top of it so I think I'll cover the borders and hope it dies off. I might go the weedkiller route even though I know it's frowned upon.

Part of me wants to just get rid of the borders so I can simply mow from fence to fence, but it'd be a shame to remove all the lovely plants (put there by the retired lady who lived here before me, and obviously enjoyed gardening a lot more than I do!)

Maybe I should just let the grass grow in the borders and keep it short with regular strimming sessions?! Thinking out loud here as I am determined to have a garden that is low maintenance but looks fairly presentable, even if it means working with the couch grass.

Could you put in a sort of edging where the vigorous grass is coming in? What sort of the fence? You'd only need to go down a few inches to block most of it, if it is couch.