So I was thinking I was being all pro-active in my garden today, using landscape cloth for the first time. Of course, I did it in the right order - I put it down, planted my plants, THEN came upstairs and checked the web for how to do it correctly.
Problem is, I’m getting a lot of pages that suggest that landscape cloth is NOT a good idea, that it doesn’t protect the way it is supposed to, and it doesn’t keep weeds from growing.
So which is it? I haven’t covered it with anything yet, so I can pull it up if need be. Should I use it or no? The garden in question is just a 10’ strip along the front walkway, I put some various flowers there.
We’ve had great success with landscaping fabric. We use a lot of the staples, though, and are pretty particular about it, but it’s been a lifesaver. We grow a lot - both for show and to eat, so we have some experience.
I convinced my SO to try it a few years ago in a flower bed, because she didn’t have time to keep up with weeding. (I’m not allowed to weed, as I tend towards the barren devastation effect.)
She was totally against the idea, but finally agreed to give it a try. Now she puts it down in all the flower gardens. It greatly reduces weeding and, combined with a good mulch layer and soaker hose, also the watering needs.
Now if I can just convince her that mulch will help in the veg garden…
The problem with landscaping cloth is a lot of people expect that you can put it down under your rocks/mulch/whatever, and never see another weed. Nice theory, but after it’s been down for a little while, you will just get weeds growing on top of the cloth from seeds that blew in. The good news is, those weeds can’t sink their roots very deep, and are all new, so when they first appear they are really really easy to pull out.
Using heavy landscape fabric works good. Only cut slits where the plants go and for the most part you only have to remove weeds from directly by the plants you wanted. I suggest laying down some irrigation under the fabric for the best plant care. It’s not easy to properly water over fabric and have it soak in where you want it. I only have to redo this type of set up after the third year. You can easily pick it all up and till every year relaying it if you want. You can then reuse the same materials. Really good fabric has lasted me about ten years before I had to replace it.
You’re wasting money if you buy thin plastic weed barrier.
I hate it. I had a house with a lot of large gardens. When I bought the house the cloth was already down. Over the next couple of years I took it all up. I bought 20 tons of wood chips and mulched all the gardens with about 4 inches of chips. It looked great and prevented more weeds than the cloth. Also it held moisture in the ground really well. All my neighbours were watering their gardens every day and mine looked better with a once a week watering.
The previous owner of my house put it down under just about everything, including all decorative plantings, and even parts of the lawn. On a slope, mulch slides off the damned stuff. When I need to weed on a steep slope (no, the fabric won’t eliminate weeds), I almost have to have someone with a belay line, to keep me from sliding off the hill. Around larger evergreens, it’s started to appear on the surface, where the lawn mower snags it. I’d like to shoot him.
I haven’t bought landscaping fabric for a few years. I use the fabric when I need to kill a lot of weeds in a new bed usually. I hate the stuff that is a plastic sheet with pin holes pricked in them.
Mulch is what goes on top if you want it. I mulch with shredded willow leaf and sticks directly on the soil of my perennial beds. Three inches of it decomposes to almost nothing by fall. This is the mulch I have in spring after clean up. I didn’t use it in most places this year do to the yuck that it was lying on, which was the former lawn.
I use milled sphagnum moss if I have to purchase mulch, because it can be tilled in at any time.
The previous owner of my house laid it down under all of the garden areas. I decided to take it up when I planted perrenials because it was preventing the plants from growing and spreading. They were basically getting squeezed and constricted by the cloth.
I use landscape fabric in my vegetable garden with great success. It works well to stop the weeds. What it doesn’t do as well is hold in moisture as a thick covering of mulch would do, which means I have to water more frequently (which isn’t a big issue for me - I use drip irrigation to put water only where I need it). If you don’t have an inexpensive source of mulch, landscape fabric is a good alternative.