Don’t let weeds take over your garden again this year. With five easy steps, you’ll be able to kill invasive weeds and prevent them from taking over your garden.

1. Defend your garden against weeds by laying down a weed cloth or a plastic weed barrier, suggests www.associatedcontent.com’s expert Kathryn Nichols. Easy Gardener, Inc. produces an eco-friendly roll of weed cloth called Weed-Block that comes in rolls as large as 3’x100’ for only $27.97, available from The Home Depot. 

Installing weed cloth is easy- simply roll the weed cloth over your garden area, cutting holes out for plants you want to keep. Shape the edges of the cloth to your garden, and then cover it with mulch, bark or gravel.

2. Mow your lawn correctly. While you may be tempted to keep your grass as short as possible (by removing more than 1/3 of the blade height), scalping weakens the integrity and defense system of your grass. That allows weeds to come in and take over.  To prevent this, set your lawnmower’s blade height to a level that only the top third of your grass blade’s height can be removed.

3. Aerate your lawn. Aerating is a simple process where you punch holes in heavily trafficked soil to alleviate congestion and allow for better air and water flow. Allaboutlawns.com says this process helps with weeds like crabgrass, chickweed and plantain.

4. Be careful introducing new plants to your garden. Weed seeds sometimes like to ride in on perennials or in the roots of new plants, says expert Russell Hancock of ezinearticles.com. Hancock recommends potting the plant to see if anything unwanted weeds start to grow before you add the plant to your garden.

5. Keep your yard weeded. Pluck weeds out of the ground as soon as you spot them, preferably before they come to seed.  Remove the entire root ball, reminds mahalo.com, as doing so ensures that the weed will not be able to reproduce.

Prevention is the best cure, so save yourself hours of backbreaking work by using these five easy steps.