You may be an excellent gardener, tending to your flowers, vegetables, and fruits as they thrive and blossom at the touch of your green thumb. Or, you may not be a gardener at all, and instead, a lawn or bed of gravel may be your only concern for your home's landscaping aesthetics. Either way, one familiar foe persists in tormenting homeowners: Weeds. They seem to grow everywhere – overtaking the areas where your desired plants reside and flourishing in unexpected places like cement and asphalt. Fortunately, with the help of a professional, there are numerous methods you can rely on to subdue these wild plants.

Numerous management options are available to return your yard to its original, beautiful state. Aside from chemical treatments, the four primary divisions of control are as follows:

• Preventative Weed Control: Just as it sounds, this practice denies the unwanted plants the opportunity to establish themselves in the first place. Preventing growth before it gets out of hand will give you a better chance of keeping your yard looking nice and clean. It also saves you from wrestling those mature root systems out of the ground later on.

• Cultural Weed Control: An extension of the primary preventive measures, cultural weed management uses techniques that keep your yard in a state where weeds are unwelcome. In other words, the yard is maintained so that it does not provide the right growing conditions for them.

• Mechanical Weed Control: This method entails gardening, farming, or other equipment to get rid of weeds and keep their populations at bay. Mowing and tilling the soil are the most common forms of mechanical weed control.

• Biological Weed Control: Still can't get rid of those stubborn plants? The application of a biological control method, or the use of another living organism to control the weeds in your yard, might do the trick. 

Weeds tend to be quite adaptive and will quickly overtake your decorative plants and the natural foliage surrounding your home once your routine falters. Successful implementation of these practices requires consistency. After all, what good is it to prevent growth for a few weeks if you'll only stop short in the middle of your control plan?

An effective weed management plan would follow a similar cycle as the one described here:

1. Set your goals for weed control and identify the weeds you need to get rid of.
2. Choose the proper management technique. 
3. Put your plan into action.
4. Monitor the progress.
5. Based on what you observe, start again from Step 1 or 2.

This time-consuming process is not one you have to take on alone. You'll hardly need to lift a finger. With the help of the experts at Walter Salazar Pest Control, you can rest assured that your yard will no longer be an eyesore. We offer protection against weeds for your lawn and ornamental plants and defenses against unwanted fungus and pests, such as cinch bugs. Contact us today for a free estimate.