Weed Bed treatment?

[Bob Scott]

I can't say on the thistle but I kill weeds/grass in a new bed with boiling water then cover the area with 5-6 layers of news paper then 2-3 inches of mulch.
You could also cover the area with black plastic for a few months then news paper and mulch. Boiling water/w salt between stepping stones and sidewalk/driveway cracks.

[jerryshenk]

You've had quite a few responses in the last week...hopefully you're making some good progress. We moved into something quite similar about 2 years ago. We used a mix of everything that's been talked about here except for the "super vinegar".

For vines, especially poison ivy vines, I used roundup. I use it very specifically...that is, I spray it on the leaves of what I want to kill. Did that for most of the thistles. I found that after a good rain or a good overnight watering, I was able to pull the thistles out too but, that's rather time consuming and ache-producing;) For the first summer, I'd wake up every morning and my hands were stiff. For roundup, I got one of the big containers with the pump - they allow for a very precise stream. Sometimes, if there are good and bad plants close together, I'll hold the bad plant to spray it.

We also started with different sections and gradually made headway....but, we live here;) You might need to decide that some places will just be better off as grass.

We took one large pine stump and cut out a deep bowl in it and planted flowers in it. We did that with an old stump that was already well rotted...I kindof like the look of that one

[digs57]

My approach to areas I want to defoliate is to pull/trim the growth down, lay down a few layers of newspaper or a single layer brown paper composting bags, and then a couple of inches of compost (or bark mulch) on that. The paper layer acts as a decent biodegradable barrier. Without light, most weeds die within six to eight weeks before the paper layer disintegrates. Afterwards, the worms happily incorporate the upper organic layer into the soil. In your particular garden I wouldn't even move the hostas, just mulch around them.