preparing flower beds

naf123

Hi

I have flower beds covered in weeds. I sprayed with roundup and they are very slowly dying. 

Can I just cover it with fresh compost and plant my new flowers in it or do I really need to pull out the dying weeds and turn over the soil?

Thank you!

Farway

If you look around you'll find lots of no dig gardening advocates, including You Tube

I'm not no dig but as I'm 198 years old so therefore not on message

IMO it would be a gamble but if the weeds were annual stuff plus dandelions & the like you could get away with it, wouldn't chance it with bindweed, horsetail & the like though

From what I've seen no dig for your bed is cover all the ground / dead weeds with overlapping cardboard, then cover that with a good, deep, layer of soil / compost and plant in to this compost, not going through the cardboard

You Tube will show you no doubt

twopenny

I think until they are well and truely shriveled and crispy and can be dug in it's not worth the risk.

I'd wait for them to be truely dead, run a hand fork over a few times to pull out anything really not attached and dispose of then turn over the soil.

You could try just planting in now in a small area to see what happens if you are willing to loose a few plants. As Farway says, if they are dandelions or horsetail type they could still come back.

Are the plants in pots still? If so to give yourself some satisfaction you could sink the pots in the soil while you're waiting. Then if you didn't like the arrangement you have time to change it.

-taff

depends. If they are perennial, like dandelion, nettles, bindweed etc, then you need to dig them up really. If they are just bog standard weeds you could cover with cardboard and then compost and plant into that. Beware though that compost willdry out more readily until the cardboard underneath is wet, so wet it first , then chuck compost on top.