If you have weeds, you don’t have enough plants.

If you are still with me after last week’s attempt to free you from the "love bondage" aka gardening addiction, then I may as well become one of the ones who enable you. Which number was that?

Just like in your lawn, and everywhere in the world, weeds are opportunistic. Mother Nature has it figured out just right- she is, in fact, the ultimate gardener. If there is a space, she plants something.

Of course, she doesn’t phoo-phoo her plants they way we do. We see plants we don’t recognize popping up and become the judge and jury. Usually no trial- we just yank it out without another thought about why weeds seem to always grow in certain spots in the garden. And we keep muttering about those weeds as they return all summer long.

Why are those weeds growing there?

Thin mulch exposes the ground and the weed seeds floating by spy the nice dirty spot and decide to come in for a landing.

Thin mulch exposes the ground and a bird might stop and push the ground around a bit, looking for a crunchy beetle or a yummy worm, while also, ummm, leaving a little package of seeds and fertilizer.

How deep should your mulch be? 2-3inches. Thinner leads to the above scenario, thicker means the rain probably doesn’t even reach the soil to get to the roots, thereby weakening your plants.

You picked the wrong plant. You didn’t prepare the soil when planting. You overwatered. You underwatered. Yikes. Not that "it’s my fault" thing again. (Well, maybe the neighbor’s dog pees on it every day....)

If you mis-stepped when planting, the annual/perennial/shrub/tree/vegetable/etc,etc will be struggling to survive. Weeds are always more than happy to run competition with the weak. If you always find weeds growing around a certain plant, the plant is holding a white flag begging you to see it is unhappy. Pop it up and check the roots, read about the culture. Put on your Sherlock Holmes hat and figure out why it is unhappy. Weeds never grow around robust plants. Too much work for them when they can easily steal water and nutrients from a feeble plant.

So on to the best part of this story.

You need more plants.

The more ground you can cover, the more the ground is shaded, the harder it is for struggling weed seedlings to get to the sunshine. I remember a Highland Gardens employee once lamenting "why don't weeds grow in the shade???" He was pulling weeds and he was hot and he was whining. He was a kid. He hadn't hit that need for "quiet time" yet.

Haha! If I can even see a square foot of mulch, my (addicted) brain goes in to contemplation. It gleefully exclaims "There is still room!"

So will it be room for weeds or room for plants?

If you have weeds, you don’t have enough plants.

Happy Wonderful day!

~Erica