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Cheap and Easy Ways to Keep the Weeds Away

Warmer weather means it’s time to start tending to your landscaping – especially the flowerbeds. But as anyone with a love for flowers and shrubbery will tell you, there’s always an inkling of fear when you spray harmful chemicals around your flowers just to keep those pesky weeds away.

Luckily, there’s a way to prevent weeds from sprouting up and it doesn’t involve the use of any sort of chemical or spray. Both of these routes do take an extra bit of work but it also eliminates the need to be on a constant lookout for weeds.

Use Newspaper

Another way to recycle newspaper is to lay them down as the base of your flower bed. First, pull up any weeds that are already there. Then lay down sections of newspaper, unfolding them lengthwise and being careful not to let them overlap with the bases of any of your plants or flowers. Make sure you have enough newspaper to go three layers deep. Cover up the newspaper with whatever you choose: mulch, pine needles, and basic soil. The paper will block out any sunlight, halting weed growth. Again, make sure none of your plants or flowers are covered or they will also fail to grow properly.

Use Garbage bags

This is the same principle as the newspaper, but can be a bit more cumbersome to lay down. The black bags work best, as they are better for blocking out the sunlight and tend to be thicker. So people believe that if you use the scented garbage bags, they also act as something of an insect deterrent.

If you opt to use one these great weed-killing approaches and don’t have a barrier between your flower beds and your yard, be mindful when mowing the lawn. One stray swipe with the mower and you could be picking up bits of paper and plastic if you failed to properly lay them down.