Cardboard Landscape

Here's a little gardening tip I learned in a gardening magazine several years ago. This is the south side of my house that bumps right up to the neighbors driveway. It's hard to get in here, hard to grow grass, but really easy to grow weeds.

So, take a bunch of cardboard, which I have since I am rearranging my house right now getting ready for moving my office to the basement (T has been over--and I have much to do!). Flatten it and lay it out over the dirt of whatever you want to have weed free for a couple of years. Double layer it in corners and overlaps. Then shovel bark mulch over it, and water it with water until it is drenched and wet. Well, this is Oregon, I'll wait for the weather to do that.

So, you have a handsome bed, no weeds, and it's not chemically induced! Once the cardboard really begins to break down and compost, it will start to grow weeds, but it will be a few years. Or if a weed take root on top, it pulls up like nothing because the roots haven't penetrated the cardboard.