5 Best Weed Killers for Flower Beds to Put Your Flora First
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Weeding is one of the most annoying jobs in the garden, which is why many people opt to skip as much of it as possible by using weed killers in their flower beds. As long as you use products like these carefully and in moderation, you can control weed growth without affecting the surrounding area.
The best weed killers for flower beds are easy to use and feature very selective herbicides that kill only weeds and grasses. Some of them also have unique benefits such as feeding plants as well as preventing weeds or having extended usage periods.
In this article, I’ve collected 5 of the best weed killers for flower beds that you can buy online. I’m sure that you can find a product that fits your gardening needs somewhere on this list!
Read on to find the perfect product for you.
Key Takeaways
After considering all of the different weed killers that I’ve used to keep my flower beds nice and clean through the years, as well as doing plenty of online research, I’ve come up with this list of the best weed and grass killers for flower beds.
Overall, I decided to recommend Ortho GroundClear Weed & Grass Killer as the top among the best weed killers for flower beds as a result of its high-quality ingredients and ease of use. It contains a powerful, non-selective herbicide that’s capable of dealing with extremely stubborn weeds.
I’ve also included products that have a couple of other unique benefits, such as the eco-friendly ECO Garden PRO – Organic Vinegar Weed Killer and the mix of selective herbicide and plant food that’s in Preen Garden Weed Preventer Plus Plant Food.
Best Overall: Ortho GroundClear Weed & Grass Killer
Why This is a Quality Choice: Ortho GroundClear Weed & Grass Killer is an excellent product for taking care of stubborn weeds in your flower bed or vegetable garden. All you have to do is apply the formula directly to weeds using the built-in applicator that it’s sold in.
Who is this for? Just about any home gardener can find a use for this great product in their gardening routine.
Flaws but not deal-breakers: This is not a selective herbicide, so you’ll have to be careful when applying it around the plants you want to be growing. However, the good news is that the applicator makes it really easy to precisely target and spray weeds.
Ingredients: Pelargonic acid, potassium hydroxide, imazapyr, and glyphosate | Effective period: 8 weeks | Selective: No | Required Equipment: None | Package size: 9 lbs.
Best Budget: Miracle-Gro Garden Weed Preventer
Why This is a Quality Choice: This weed preventer from Miracle-Gro is a cost-effective and easy-to-use solution for controlling weeds in flower beds. This selective herbicide is fine to use around all the flowers, vegetables, roses, and trees that the manufacturer lists, making it an easy product to use early in the season.
Who is this for? Anyone who wants to get ahead of a weed problem by using a preventative herbicide should consider this product.
Flaws but not deal-breakers: Some customers have complained that the recommended method of application (spreading herbicide directly from the jug) can lead to inconsistent application, but others haven’t reported this as a problem.
Ingredients: Trifluralin | Effective period: 12 weeks | Selective: Yes | Required Equipment: None | Package size: 5 lbs.
Best Organic: ECO Garden PRO – Organic Vinegar Weed Killer
Why This is a Quality Choice: ECO Garden PRO – Organic Vinegar Weed Killer manages to combine safe and natural ingredients with excellent performance when it comes to controlling weeds. After you apply this vinegar- and sodium-chloride-based herbicide to problematic weeds, they’ll be history within 24 hours. It’s also safe for children and pets, which is a definite plus.
Who is this for? Gardeners who are passionate about using only organic products in their gardens will love this product. (Note: gardeners who are eco-conscious should check out this article on lawns).
Flaws but not deal-breakers: This product doesn’t come with an applicator, but you can use something as simple as a spray bottle to apply it.
Ingredients: Vinegar and sodium chloride | Effective period: 24 hours (kills weeds in that time) | Selective: No | Required Equipment: None | Package size: 9 lbs.
Best with Plant Food: Preen Garden Weed Preventer Plus Plant Food
Why This is a Quality Choice: This Weed Preventer from the gardening brand Preen is a long-lasting weed preventer that can be used around several types of perennial flowers. It provides protection from weeds for up to three months, which means that you don’t have to worry about reapplying it all the time. And, as an added bonus, it contains plant food to help support the growth of your flowers after application.
Who is this for? If you’re not a fan of constantly applying different products—herbicides, fertilizers, plant foods, etc.—to your garden, then this product will suit you because of its long effective period and multiple uses.
Flaws but not deal-breakers: Preen Garden Weed Preventer Plus Plant Food isn’t recommended for use in vegetable gardens, so you should choose a different product if you’re looking to get a weed killer to use on both flower beds and vegetable patches.
Ingredients: Trifluralin, plus fertilizing compounds | Effective period: 12 weeks | Selective: No | Required Equipment: None | Package size: 20 lbs.
Best for Killing Grass: Ortho Grass B Gon Garden Grass Killer Ready-to-Use Spray
Why This is a Quality Choice: The Ortho Grass B Gon Garden Grass Killer Ready-to-Use Spray is an excellent selective herbicide that’s tough on grasses but not the plants you want growing in your flower beds. It’s on this list of the best weed killers for flower beds as a result of its ability to double as a grass controller in other areas of your garden, including along driveways and walkways.
Who is this for? If you tend to worry more about controlling grasses than other types of weeds where you’re growing, I’d recommend this product for you.
Flaws but not deal-breakers: It comes in a simple-to-use spray bottle, which is great for using over small areas but inappropriate for applications over larger areas.
Ingredients: Corn gluten meal | Effective period: 8 weeks | Selective: No | Required Equipment: None | Package size: 20 lbs.
Buying Considerations for the Best Weed Killers For Flower Beds
Ingredients
There are many different ingredients that may go into a given weed or grass killer, including both synthetic and natural ingredients. The layout of your garden, types of plants you’re growing, and the types of grasses and weeds you’re combating are all very important things to think about when choosing what weed killer ingredients will be best for you.
If, for example, you’re dealing with common weeds in a tightly packed flower bed, it makes sense to choose a weed killer that uses natural ingredients with a lighter touch. That’s because you might find it difficult to target weeds without also impacting the flowers you want to grow. However, there are tons of different factors and everyone’s garden is different.
Selective or Non-Selective
Whether or not a weed kill is selective is also a very important buying consideration when choosing a weed killer. Some gardeners prefer to use non-selective weed killers in certain situations because they can very quickly and reliably kill weeds without any trouble or multiple applications.
Other gardeners, however, would prefer to use a selective herbicide that won’t harm their flowers over a wider area. You don’t need to be as careful when you’re using selective herbicides since misapplying won’t harm your flowers.
Effective Period
Finally, different weed killers have different properties when it comes to how long they will prevent new weeds from sprouting after being used. In general, weed killers take one of two approaches to this problem: they’re either optimized for killing weeds that have appeared quickly and efficiently or they’re intended to prevent weed growth in the first place.
I personally prefer to use weed preventers early in the season to get ahead of weed growth, and then use a weed killer to take care of any weeds that do end up appearing.
How I Choose These Products
I came up with this list by combining my own extensive experience using weed killers in my own garden with a huge amount of online research. For each product on this list, I’ve either used it or used a very similar product (in terms of ingredients and type of weed killer). As a result, I’m confident that the products will perform well in the various use cases I describe.
I also made sure to back up my own experiences with these products by researching how other gardeners have found using these products. Reading a plethora of online reviews about each product helped alert me to benefits I hadn’t ever thought of and caused me to take a couple products off this list (once I found out about some issues that customers have had with them). I really like the list I came up with in the end and hope that you’ve found it useful.
Final Verdict
Overall, I picked Ortho GroundClear Weed & Grass Killer as tops among the best weed killers for flower beds as a result of its excellent formula. And, it comes with everything you need to apply the weed killer is literally attached to the bottle it comes in. That means you won’t have any problem maintaining neat and clean flower beds if you bust out this product every so often. Good luck with your flower beds this spring!
FAQs
What is the best weed killer that won’t kill flowers?
There are a number of solutions that can help you kill weeds without affecting the plants you want to grow, ranging from natural products to chemical compounds. Common natural solutions include vinegar-based compounds, which kill weeds by making soil conditions more acidic (which doesn’t affect flowers) and corn gluten meal. You can also use a solution like a landscape fabric to prevent weed growth. Chemical weed killers can include compounds like diquat dibromide and trifluralin.
What is the strongest weed killer for gardens?
The strongest weed killers for gardens are non-selective chemical herbicides. These products are capable of killing weeds very effectively but can also end up harming the plants you want growing. You can avoid this by applying such weed killers in small amounts to areas where weeds are growing but not plants or flowers. Make sure to carefully follow the usage instructions from the manufacturers of any products like this you use. You can pull out any weeds that are too close to your plants using manual weeding tools.
What is best to kill weeds but not plants?
Selective weed killers are the best solution for gardeners who want to kill weeds but not plants. This means that the weed killer contains only compounds that are harmful for weeds, such as vinegar or corn gluten meal. Unfortunately, some weeds might not die as a result of this treatment, which means that you may have to get out your weeding tools (such as a hori hori knife) to pull them out).
