soil solarization

When caring for your Maryland, yard finding a balance between convenience and ecologically friendly landscaping practices can be a challenge and killing weeds is no exception. Even if you remove every weed in sight by hand, roots and all, there are still thousands of invisible weed seeds waiting to sprout. But what if you could kill pesky weeds, without chemicals, before they even start to sprout. Soil Solarization is a preventative, organic method of killing weeds. It’s not easy, and requires starting your yard over from a clean slate, but the benefits are huge.

  1. Before you do anything, make sure you can identify any poisonous species like poison ivy, oak, and sumac. You’ll be getting knee-deep in the weeds, so knowing any dangerous plants is absolutely necessary before beginning soil solarization.
  2. Soil Solarization means starting over from scratch and getting down to the root of your problems so you’ll have to trim down any tall vegetation with shears or a power trimmer, and mow any additional grass and weeds down.
  3. Next, you’ll have to cut down any trees as flush to the ground as possible using an axe or chainsaw, removing the stumps before moving onto the next step. You can use a crowbar or mattock to get the stumps complete removed.
  4. The next step of soil solarization requires using a tiller and steel rake to till and rake your soil, completely removing all the weeds and roots from your yard. Follow up with a thorough blasting with a hose to moisten the disturbed earth.
  5. The next and perhaps most crucial step of soil solarization is where we actually get to killing weeds. Spread a clear polyethylene sheet over your yard and weight the edges down with cinder blocks. Keep the sheet tightly stretched over your yard for 4-6 weeks. During this time, the sun will penetrate your soil, heating all the weed seeds and killing them before they have a chance to sprout.
  6. After soil solarization has occurred, you can remove the plastic sheeting, lay down some landscape fabric, and get to replanting. Congratulations, you’ve essentially purified your lawn organically and without any chemicals.

While soil solarization is a wonderful and incredibly ecologically friendly way of killing weeds and “restarting” your lawn, it’s obviously a very labor-intensive one. If you’re looking for a Maryland company that can handle the task of soil solarization and subsequent replanting, then you should consider contacting Rhine Landscaping.

Rhine Landscaping

Rhine Landscaping has been serving the Maryland area with landscaping, hardscaping, and swimming pool design and installation for years. If you want to begin killing weeds with Soil Solarization, call us at (410)-442-2445 or fill out our online contact form today!

Source: About.com