Weeds vs an old rickety back

I have lots of weeds in a small garden that also houses fruit trees. Unfortunately time has marched on and due to illness i cannot bend to weed my patch any more. I was wondering if i could use a good weedkiller to get rid of the weds, one that will not harm the fruit trees? Can i also kill them and leave them in place, covering them with weed suppresant fabric and bark chippings, or is it best to remove them by raking or similar? Help and advice will be very much appreciated...........

wait until you have a very still day with rain forecast in the next 24 hrs, and spray with a systemic weedkiller.you can then cover the area with a sheet of mypex fabric and bark chippings on top of it ,or you could ask a kind neighbour to help you .

Derek

or wind factor.

Was my comment not up to your standards . no rain forecast for 24 hrs and no Gale blowing  

Derek you did actually write "with rain forecast"-come on- a bit of joshing doesn't hurt.

re-read  your right

You can spray the weeds with glyphosate which only kills the plants that have had their leaves sprayed. It is best to spray when the weeds are actually gowing then it will be taken into their roots, so may be a bit early yet. It won't hurt the apple trees. The weeds will take about 3 weeks to turn pale and die then put down your weed supressant fabric and cover it with bark chippings. Glyphosate only needs a few hours without rain after spraying it. I prefer to rake the weeds up before putting down the fabric, but I don't really know the answer to that one.

Sadly new weeds will still grow on top of the weed suppressant and through the bark chippings as I know from experience

Yes, eventually, seeds can be dropped by birds or float in the air, but it will still be a big improvement and they're not too hard to hoe gently out of the chippings.

you could also spray the mypex with simazine and then cover with chippings ,

regards Derek

whack the weeds with a helper, then when u see weed seedlings, use a hoe?

actually, where are you? I'll drive up there and waste them weeds :P

Thanx for the advice, it sorta reinforced what i thought. Looks like being a visit to a local garden centre for a big tub of Glyphosate within the next few weeks ('ll let the rain die down first).