Hand-Pulling Vs Getting Weeds Sprayed: What's The Difference?

Although there's some benefit to leaving a few weeds here and there, many people choose to spend time weeding to maintain their garden's visual appeal. Of course, just like other parts of maintaining a beautiful and thriving garden, not everyone completes this task in the same way. Some people may opt for manual removal, using either their hands or helpful weeding tools, while others prefer to use chemical means to keep weeds at bay. Both options come with their own pros and cons, as well as several differences to help you distinguish between them.

Manual removal of weeds includes any weeding method that isn't done through herbicides, whether store-bought or homemade. When you think of hand-pulling, you may think of kneeling in the garden, gloves on, pulling weed after weed until your arms burn. While hand-pulling is one common method, you may also use certain tools designed for weed removal to help make the job easier.

Spraying your weeds, however, is an example of chemical removal that uses herbicides to kill the entirety of the plant rather than just pulling it from the ground. Both of these options can be viable, with their best-usage depending on your yard, preferences, and the types of plants you may be dealing with.

While you may now know the general difference between hand-pulling weeds and using a spray, familiarizing yourself with the benefits and disadvantages of each method can help you decide which approach is best for you and your garden. (See 30 common weeds and how to identify them.)

Hand-pulling weeds offers various benefits, not all of them limited to your garden's appearance or health alone. On the surface, manually removing weeds is an environmentally friendly approach that keeps the soil's microbiome healthy and provides immediate results, with the weed eliminated as soon as it's removed for the ground.

However, hand-pulling also goes beyond this to provide you with physical exercise, which can be a nice touch for the gardener looking to reap the physical and mental health benefits of gardening even through some of the most mundane chores. This said, one con of pulling weeds by hand is that it may not completely get rid of all your weeds for good. Hand-pulling is best used when you want a quick approach that targets certain weeds rather than a large-scale cleanup.

On the other side, if you're not swayed by the physical exercise argument, then spraying away your weeds may be for you, as it removes the elbow grease needed for weeding while targeting the entire plant, roots and all, to help reduce the likelihood of regrowth. With herbicides, you can easily tackle larger portions of your yard at once for better weed control.

For the disadvantages you should be aware of, using a spray to rid your garden of weeds can also introduce potentially harmful herbicides into the environment. Consider that to use it, it requires both environmental knowledge and the proper PPE for handling, depending on the type of weed killer used.