How to eradicate weeds -- including field bindweed -- without chemicals
Plus: Choosing "the best" roses
Hi, guys!
Weeding season is back with a vengeance over here at Casa Damiano, and I can’t say I’m happy about it.
It’s much worse than it should be because in the fall, after painstakingly and repeatedly raking all my fallen leaves into my beds and borders to serve as mulch (and provide habitat for overwintering pollinators), my landscaper, who only cuts the grass, forgot my instructions and used a leaf blower to clear most of them out.
So this spring, I’m mulch-challenged. Mulch — whether shredded bark, woodchips or those valuable fallen leaves, is a vital part of every garden. It moderates soil temperature to protect roots, retains moisture to reduce drought stress and water requirements, and suppresses weeds. Any weeds that manage to take hold in mulch are easily pulled up.
When applying mulch, timing is essential. It’s important to wait until the soil temperature warms sufficiently, typically in late spring (unless you’re gardening in zones 9 or higher). Doing so earlier would risk trapping the cold in the soil, which would delay plant growth. Here on Long Island, I wait until early June.
But landscapers have been spreading the stuff since March, you say. Yes, that’s true. They’re wrong. Don’t do it.
Another great way to suppress weeds is to put all those Amazon boxes to good use.
Any uncoated cardboard will do, but the corrugated type is especially effective. Laid around plants and covered with a few inches of topsoil, compost and/or mulch in the fall, it will ensure a nearly weed-free spring.
When it’s time to plant, just dig a hole through the remaining, by-then soggy, cardboard and insert an annual, perennial, shrub, tree, vegetable plant or herb.
For deep-rooted or otherwise stubborn weeds, Grampa’s weeder is my tool of choice. It effortlessly pulls up weeds from their roots without requiring bending. And it’s actually fun to use (it’s the first item on this page).
Mulch, cardboard and/or a good weeding tool will easily and ecologically address most of your weed problems without exposing your soil, groundwater, children, pets or wildlife to harmful chemicals, so please don’t reach for a spray bottle as your first course of action.
Vinegar and salt, although natural products, can damage your soil and kill the plants growing in it, so avoid their use in the garden. I don’t care what those TikTok influencers say.
The only place it’s safe to use salt or vinegar as weed control is in walkway or driveway cracks, but even then, I prefer to pour boiling water on them from a tea kettle. Just be careful not to burn yourself.
Still, some invasive, stubborn weeds don’t respond well to any of these methods. Some shouldn’t even be dug out because leaving even minuscule broken root pieces behind will multiply and strengthen their numbers.
Field bindweed is an especially noxious weed. It spreads by lateral roots, tap roots and rhizomes that travel horizontally and send up new plants every few feet or inches. If you pull one up, another will sprout and propagate like crazy nearby. And its seeds can live dormant in the soil for up to 40 years. Even herbicides won’t kill it.
If you’ve got field bindweed in your garden, the best (and probably only) way to control it would be to METHODICALLY dig up all its roots (don’t leave even a piece behind), then cover the area with thick layers of cardboard and landscape fabric. Leave it in place for an entire growing season, then remove the fabric to avoid over-suffocating the soil.
Continue to keep the area covered with a 3-inch layer of mulch to deprive dormant seeds of sunlight.
Although the weed will be diminished, you should be prepared to see more pop up here and there, and when you do, pull or dig them up immediately. More will come, but over time — years, perhaps — the plants will become depleted and give up. Or at least we can hope.
If you have any tried-and-true, non-chemical weed treatments to share, please send them along.
📬 Ask Jessica
DEAR JESSICA: I’d love to plant roses. Will you please advise on the best location to plant them? My home faces east in the front, west in the back, north on the right and south on the left. We get cold winters and hot summers. I have inground sprinklers. Also, which are the best roses to plant? Color is not important). Thank you! — Donald DeNucci, Hammonton, New Jersey
DEAR DONALD: Roses require at least 6-8 hours of sunlight exposure daily, so, in New Jersey, the direction your garden faces is less important than the amount of sunlight it receives.
To determine this, choose a clear day and go outside to observe the area four times, at regular intervals (at 7 am, 11 am, 3 pm and 7 pm, for example). As the sun moves across the sky, nearby trees and structures may cast shade on the soil. Use your findings to gauge the hours of sunlight your plants will get if planted in a given area.
Once you’ve found a spot that meets the requirements, the next consideration should be watering. In-ground sprinklers, which are designed for lawns, are not ideal for roses or any other plants or shrubs because they wet foliage, which encourages mold, mildew and fungal diseases, and don’t direct water to the roots, where it’s needed.
The ideal spot for your roses is out of the sprinkler’s path.
There are tens of thousands of rose varieties, so it would be impossible for me to recommend “the best.” But if you’re new to growing roses, modern landscape-type roses, such as those in the Knock Out family, might serve you well. They’re disease-resistant, low-maintenance, long-blooming and available with single or double flowers and several color options.
For more inspiration, here’s an article I recently wrote about new rose varieties introduced for spring 2025.
Got a gardening question? Ask it here.
👏 Sunday shoutout
“My poppies popped just in time for Memorial Day,” writes Mary Fjellstad of Smithtown, New York. “Although the rain did a number on them later in the week, they looked spectacular!”
Send in your photo, and you could be featured next (bonus points if you’re in the picture!)
💡 If you do one thing this week…
Cut chrysanthemums, Joe Pye weed, asters and Heliopsis back by one-third now. They’ll grow full and bloom better later.
📰This week in my Associated Press gardening column
I write a weekly gardening column for the AP, so you might have seen my byline in your local paper (or news website) — wherever in the world you happen to be. In case you miss it, I’ll post the most recent here every week.
LAST WEEK: Everything you need to know about the Chelsea Chop
BEFORE THAT: Tradition and change intertwine to create beauty at a century-old arboretum
ONE MORE: Plants to pick -- and those to avoid -- if you suffer from pollen allergies
You can read all my AP gardening columns here.
📚📺🎵 Random things I enjoyed this week
🧼 I pressure-washed my walkways, porch, deck, mailbox, and patio and fire pit furniture. It’s so satisfying (even though my back wasn’t happy afterward)!
🚯 I cleared my garage of paint cans, used motor oil, pesticides and other such items that had been stored in there for years and brought them to my town’s hazardous waste disposal site (my back didn’t like that, either)
📺 I saw Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr and Michael McKean perform in Glengarry Glen Ross on Broadway — and it was … SO IRRITATING! The characters just yelled at each other for an hour and 45 minutes straight. It was pure frenetic abrasiveness. Still, the actors are all fantastic, and it was great seeing them perform together. Also, I ran into Peter Gallagher in the lobby!
📺 I watched Mickey 17 on Max. You know me — I love a dystopian story — and this one, about an “expendable” employee (Robert Pattinson), was right up my alley. Living and working on another planet that humans have inhabited, the lead character is put into dangerous situations where he invariably dies; then, new bodies are regenerated for him, and his memories are downloaded into them. He’s on his 17th life as the story unfolds, hence the title. It was written and directed by Bong Joon Ho, who created “Parasite,” another favorite.
📺 I also watched Hannah Einbinder: Everything Must Go after finishing the current season of Hacks. I hadn’t realized she did standup — or that her mother is Laraine Newman of SNL fame!
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📧 How’m I doing?
I welcome your comments and suggestions, so please send them along — as well as any topics you’d like to see covered and questions you’d like answered in the Ask Jessica section.
Grandpas Weeder is great….its how I remove most of my weeds now…. and mulching my leaves in the fall is working well too! (I usually mulch them into the lawn but less to rake in the end when they’re all down :)