Weeds can be very difficult to get under control after they have taken over your lawn or garden. The difference between a weed and a plant is often one of perception. Take something like gout weed. Although this literally has the word weed in its name, inexperienced gardeners may unwittingly plant this as a ground cover next to flower beds or lawns. The problem with doing this is that gout weed is extremely invasive and will quickly spread into areas where you don't want it. It will soon take over and choke out other plants until you are left with nothing but gout weed. Gout weed is even illegal to plant in certain states for this reason.
Unfortunately, digging out the gout weed is generally not an effective way to eradicate it. Gout weed has deep pervasive roots and tendrils so if you don't dig up every last morsel of the root it will continue to spread and flourish.
One method that has proven to be effective against gout weed is to completely cover the plant for a full growing season to starve the gout weed of the light it requires to conduct photo synthesis. Eventually it won't have enough energy to survive. If you want to try this method we recommend ordering a black, 18 oz vinyl tarp since this will block virtually 100% of the sun light. If you are trying to completely kill a patch of gout weed you should make sure the tarp extends about 3 feet beyond where the gout weed ends. Otherwise, the plant will try to grow beyond where the tarp starts.
You can keep the tarp from blowing off by covering it with rocks or stones or you could use ropes to tie the tarp to trees or stakes.
The nice thing about this method is that it does not require much work and it is environmentally friendly since it does not involve pesticides or herbicides.
Once you have gotten your weed problem under control you can use the tarp to cover outdoor furniture, trailers, lawnmowers or whatever else you want to store outside while keeping it dry.
