Well you could try removing said block regions from the Essential themes layout/frontpage.php
https://github.com/gjb2048/moodle-theme_essential/blob/master/layout/frontpage.php#L41-L43
https://github.com/gjb2048/moodle-theme_essential/blob/master/layout/frontpage.php#L197-L208
as well as references to same in essential/config.php
https://github.com/gjb2048/moodle-theme_essential/blob/master/config.php#L64-L74
https://github.com/gjb2048/moodle-theme_essential/blob/master/config.php#L88
That would remove the blocks as well as the names of those regions when editing.
Just make you you make a copy of the frontpage.php and config.php files before you alter it.
Mary