Getting Rid of Tough Weeds with Cardboard

This natural method gets rid of even the toughest weeds without using any chemicals or sprays. All you need is cardboard. Easy, natural, pet friendly, won’t hurt the roots of neighboring plants, plus it’s FREE.

I don’t normally post about gardening, but this trick is too good to keep to myself. It has worked for me in multiple places in our family’s landscaping where weeds were taking over. Take the area under this bush for example. Last year, this spot was completely covered with weeds. It looked like we had planted these things as a ground cover. They wouldn’t pull up either.

Enter my good gardening friend, the cardboard box.

Cardboard is amazing as a weed barrier because it breaks down after a couple of years, nourishing the soil. It doesn’t block air from the dirt, so it doesn’t hurt roots or decomposers. It just blocks the sun from the weeds, which gets rid of them without a whole ton of effort on my part.

A few weeds did find their way through the cardboard I put down last year. This spot was definitely destined for a second round of weed removal. I have much less to deal with this year though! This time, I have lots of cardboard boxes saved up. I’m putting down several layers, so those stubborn weeds don’t creep up between the edges of the boxes again.

I started by scraping back the mulch everywhere there were weeds.

Then I started laying down cardboard boxes. It’s a good idea to overlap them because weeds have a way of popping up between boxes.

When you think you are good to go, add a second layer of cardboard boxes!

The more cardboard you put down, the smaller the chance is that you will have to do this two years in a row like I did.

In fact, if you are dealing with a seemingly impossible weed, you may want to just keep throwing cardboard down every time you get a box.

I make this suggestion from experience.

A few years ago, I literally had a berm covered in chive plants that had taken over. We had planted one plant. It multiplied into dozens of plants and started spreading into the yard. At that point, I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of them. I tried spraying the plants with vinegar. It didn’t work. I tried vinegar that was 30% acid. (Normal grocery store vinegar is 10%.) The super strong vinegar (which I needed gloves to handle) wilted the plant, but after three or four times of spraying the “chive invasion” as I soon called it, the plants were just a bit thinner than they had been before.

I didn’t want to use chemicals that are hazardous to people, pets and the environment.

I was so frustrated. I read different methods of getting rid of weeds. I could put plastic over the area to smother the weeds… except it’s bad for decomposers and microorganisms in the soil. I could dig them up… except I didn’t want to hand dig a 30 square foot area. The best idea I came across was to cover new garden beds with compost and wait about a year before planting for the grass underneath to die and decompose.

That idea had potential.

But I didn’t have a truckload of compost, so I improvised.

I started throwing cardboard over the chives. It took a LOT of cardboard to cover the large area the plants had overtaken, so it took a while. Every time we got a package, I threw the box on the berm.

It worked. Today, we only have a couple of those crazy chives left. And I have a stack of cardboard boxes in the garage all ready to put over them.

It’s definitely a story with an unlikely hero, but it has a happy ending!

Now back to how to put cardboard to work in your garden. After you have several layers of cardboard put down, cover the area with mulch. The mulch is there for two reasons. First, it holds the cardboard in place. Second, it disguises the cardboard.

Now no one will even know the cardboard is there.

Okay, that needs a disclaimer. I’ve found one place this method doesn’t work well: on paths. The cardboard can be a bit slick underneath the layer of mulch. If you are going to walk on an area a lot, I would NOT recommend this method… unless you figure out a way to stake down the cardboard first. If you do, please let me know about it, so I can try it too, okay?

Remember those weeds we started with?

They won’t be making another appearance for a while.

Just for the sheer joy of a good before and after, let’s see that again.

Here’s the before:

And here’s the after:

No more weeds. That’s pretty exciting, especially since it came together in a single afternoon. Or is being happy about weeding a sign that I’m a grown up now? 😂

Is there a place you want to try this method of (not) weeding in your garden? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

I hope this method helps you as much as it has helped me.

Blessings,