Best way to get rid of weeds and grass in a flower bed

[Sundaycoffee]

My garden hasn't been touched since last summer and is terribly over grown! I had a man round today and he cut the grass and cut everything back/down.
The flower beds are now easy for me to access and try and start maintaining. There are a couple of plants dotted here and there (lavender, rose bush and hydrangea) but the majority of the flower bed is weed and grass. What is the easiest way to get the bed clear? I am a total novice and not sure if I just need to be pulling these up by the root or should just spray a load of weed killer over the beds first? What's the best course of action?

I am quite a novice too but I think if you spray everything with weed killer you’ll have difficulty getting anything to grow afterwards! Unfortunately I find the only sure fire way of de weeding is to literally pull them out by the roots, hands and knees, with a small spade and I use an empty bucket / flower pot to bung them in as I go.

I would dig it all out. I'm not a huge fan of weedkiller, partly because it can easily drift and kill things you really want to keep. Also, the dead weeds will look awful and need to be removed anyway. It might not seem easier, but experience has taught me that this is the quickest way, and that means that in the end it is easier.

Once you've got them out, give the whole bed a good mulch. It will help keep weeds down and those that do grow will be easier to remove. It will also improve the soil and retain moisture.

No advice but sympathy as I'm in the same position. Large garden. Awful hayfever. Dreading it.

Yep. Hands and knees, and fork them out. You need to keep going all summer, and probably the next couple too. Eventually you get on top of it, and it gets manageable, but I just filled two wheelie bins with weeds, terrible year for weeds with all this rain and then sun.

The best suppressant for weeds, is dense planting. That's the fun bit, so don' t use chemicals, as you will want to fill the beds with plants.

Avoid weedkiller where possible, it not only drifts to other plants in the wind but gets into the water when it rains. It's really only on hard surfacing that weed killer is sometimes necessary.
Dig them out with as much root as possible and then cover with a mulch (a thick one!) to limit them coming back. Get as much of the fibrous roots from grass out as you can especially. A bark chip mulch will do and can look attractive, might be worth buying more plants you want to put in the border first so things don't look too sparse when you mulch though.

Agree with no weed killer - who wants toxic chemicals in their garden!

Also agree with heavy mulch - put down cardboard between the plants and the dump all the grass clippings on top. Some particularly robust weeds will get through and you can then dig them out, but it will save you a load of work weeding out stuff which would just die anyway. As pp said, dense planting is your friend.

I agree digging out is the way to go. It’s easier to do after rain has soaked the soil. A little and often makes it less overwhelming. If you haven’t got a lot of time, pull off the tops, this stops the flowers setting seeds.
A good comfortable hand fork and kneeling pad help.

Hoe it and then cover the soil with a mulch like bark or similar, if you do a thick layer it’ll help with weeds massively

I wood use weedkiller for bishopweed and morning glory - it’s so hard to get the root out. A systemic one. Use it on the leaves only, it is absorbed by the leaves and taken down to the roots so the whole thing is killed. Wear disposable gloves and spray carefully.

I'm no gardener but a friend recommended boiling water on some particularly hardy thistles and it really did the trick - might be the most satisfying part of gardening tbh!

This

I do this on my paving, also mixed with white vinegar and sometimes salt poured between the gaps.

Are you in the UK? “Morning glory” is the common name for Ipomea, which will die in the winter anyway. It seems to be used for Hedge Bindweed in California, but not in UK

Bishopweed I see is another name for Ground Elder, probably sensible as it avoids confusion with Elder.