Flower bed invaded with weeds....black fabric, does it help?

Question

I pulled the weeds constantly throughout the season, even sprayed a couple times....eventually they took over (it's some kind of crabgrass that sends shoots out and the shoots root and just take over a garden in no time) mulch was a futile effort.......I spent 6 hours yesterday, pulling weeds, and still have 4 hours to go...does the black 'fabric' you lay under your mulch, really help? I'm thinking about laying it in my flower beds next season....

Answer 1

Newspapers are much better to use!.
We bought a house that had used the weed control fabric and we actually had to use a truck to pull it up!
When i redid them i used newspapers which breakdown into the earth and i had very very few weeds.
I also read in a gardening magazine of this Gardner who said she overcrowds her beds eliminating the weeds. no sun reaching the soil therefore no weeds and she had beautiful beds!!!

Answer 2

Weeds will always be a battle, but you can slow it down with a good quality fabric. Make sure you ask around at your garden center, because the really thin stuff doesn't work. Now if you lay the fabric down and mulch and go out and weed your garden once a week you will keep on top of things.

Answer 3

DON'T DO IT!

I ran a greenhouse/nursery and had a huge perennial display bed. Like you, I thought landscape fabric was the answer. I spent a bundle, pegged it down carefully and covered it with attractive mulch.
One year later: perennials were crowded and could not spread. Meanwhile, grass roots clung to the fuzzy underside of the fabric and sprouted up through every hole where flowers grew. Because the roots were stuck to the fabric, they couldn't be eliminated. I ended up with the massive job of removing all the fabric - a hard and delicate task since I now had to work around existing flower clumps. I had to take it out in small pieces with a pair of heavy-duty scissors!

My advice: don't merely pull; use a spading fork to dig up between and around flowers. Remove all the roots you can find. You'll never get them all ...the only mission of a garden is to revert to pasture as soon as it can. But a thorough job will postpone the day when you have to do it again.

Answer 4

If it is annual crabgrass, the black fabric will help a lot, as the seedlings won't be able to germinate or sprout through the fabric. Use the fabric plus about 2 inches of thick mulch on top of it. Will also help on water needs.
If you are unfortunate to have bermuda, move your bed. Bermuda grass can grow right through the fabric after a year or so, and will find any opening and leap through it, it seems.

Answer 5

G'day mate. That black fabric is called Weed Mat (in Australia). It works fine as long as you can prevent weed seeds from collecting on the surface.
I use weed mat as a base to keep my nursery potted stock on, so I don't need to use any mulch. I still herbicide around the edge of mine to keep weeds at a distance and so that I don't need to mow close to the mat.
When you select your mulch make sure it's good stuff and doesn't have any weed seeds.

Answer 6

Yes, it helps a lot. It's called gardening fabric or weed barrier in the US and is available in any garden center or hardware store. It will need to be replaced after a few years, but it's worth the effort.

Answer 7

Gidday,

Weed mates work fine, but for now you can place heaps of newspapers over the weeds. (around 15 to 20 pages thick) Hose the papers down with lots of water and put some wood chips or somthing like that on top of the newspaper so the sheets don't blow away. This kills the weeds for now and the newspapers eventually breakdown into the soil.

regards

Answer 8

We put it down in my Parents garden two years ago. What we found was the first year it did wonders for keeping the weeds away, but this year they have started growing on top of the fabric.

Oh well back to weeding.........

Answer 9

yes it works but you can spray your weeds with bleach it works real good.