What is the point of landscaping fabric and when should you use it?

Answer 1

I use landscape fabric for weed control. Most landscape fabrics make the weed problem worse, but if you use the right kind of landscape fabric you won't have weeds. The best fabric for weed control keeps the weeds that grow in the top mulch [and that is about 99 % of the weed problem] from putting their roots through the fabric and getting entangled in the fabric. Most fabrics allow weed roots through to the moist ground underneath, and this makes the weeds healthy and hard to remove.

The fabric I have found that always works is Weed-X and I found it at Wal-Mart. I bought it because it has a weed-free guarantee. My natural areas have stayed virtually weed-free for the last five years, and although I do occasionally get weeds in the top mulch, they are pretty easy to pluck out since the roots don't have anyplace to go.

You should NEVER use plastic film unless it has some perforations in it, as solid film will kill your plants. Lightly perforated film will do a good job with weeds and still let water and air through. Heavily perforated films are no better than most fabrics, and only encourage weed growth. Next time you check out landscape fabric- hold the film/fabric up to the light to see if it is heavily [hundreds of holes], or lightly [occasional holes] perforated. Check the label and look at the fabric before you buy it.

TIPS: With fabric, you can use less mulch. The thinner mulch will usually dry out between rains which will both cause any weeds developing in the top mulch to die, as well as greatly slowing down the mulch rotting process. About two inches of mulch can actually last longer than four, and you can pay for the fabric with your savings on mulch.

Answer 2

Landscape fabric is a real improvement over putting plastic under your mulches to control weeds. Plastic tears allowing weeds to pop up through. Fabric doesn't tear but it needs to be installed so there is a lot of overlap on the seams.

If you are in a heavy rain area, your mulch is more likely to wash off slippery plastic than nappy fabric.

The #1 reason to use fabric is it allows air and water into the root zone. Plastic doesn't. Without oxygen in the soil, plants die. We could tell within a year or two when people put down plastic and rock and when their evergreen trees started dieing. It was plain as day.

You use fabric whenever you will not be digging in the ground. For example you put in shrubs and will not be putting flowers inbetween. The fabric goes down first, then holes cut for the shrubs. Afterwards the mulch is applied.

For flower beds, vegetables or wherever you'll be digging, no fabric, just mulch (if desired)

Is fabric perfect? No. Like plastic it can hold windblown dust on top allowing weeds to grow. The poorer quality fabrics have holes too large so weeds can germinate on the top and send their roots through the holes into the soil below.

Answer 3

Landscape fabric allows light, water and air to pass through the fabric to the soil below. It's used mostly in commercial settings where there are permanent shrubs and trees, with no annual or perennial flowers.

It's not very effective under bark in residential applications to prevent weeds. Weed seeds are in the soil and they are dropped by the wind and birds on top of the bark. You'll still have to use weed killing chemicals because the weed fabric makes it impossible to physically remove the weed and root. As the bark or other mulch breaks down, it cannot benefit the soil below, but it provides a very hospitable environment above the weed fabric for new weeds to grow well by sending their roots through the fabric into the soil below. And again, it's difficult to remove the weed roots.

If you want to make changes in your planter beds, it's very difficult when you have landscape fabric laid.

We do not use it unless a client insists, and even though we explain that it doesn't prevent weeds, we still get complaints about weeds growing through it.

About the only time we use it is when we are putting down landscape rock, or pea gravel so that the rocks don't sink and mix into the soil.

Answer 4

Landscaping Cloth

Answer 5

Landscaping fabric is suppose to suppress weed growth while allowing rain to pass thru to the roots of what you do want growing.

The problem with the fabric is that eventually the weeds start growing on top of the mulch that is on top of the landscaping fabric. Then you have to use chemicals to kill the weeds.

My suggestion is instead of landscaping fabric, use cardboard under your mulch. It suppresses the weeds for at least two years and when the weeds do start growing, just add another layer of cardboard and more mulch and your set for another two years. You've also enriched the soil with the mulch and cardboard.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

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RE:
What is the point of landscaping fabric and when should you use it?

Answer 8

In my opinion, and based on many years of experience with this stuff, i would tend to advise you not to use it. The only place that I've seen it do what it's supposed to do is at commercial nurseries. The material that they use is as thick as the heaviest canvas that I've ever seen, has big brass grommets on it and is spiked to the ground...and is continuously run over by forklifts, bobcats and trampled by thousands and thousands of customers. Obversely, the stuff that the BigBoxSuperCenter sells is thin wimpy junk that grass passes right through before it welds the fabric to the ground with its roots, making it nearly impossible to remove once you've quickly learned to hate it. It'll shred when you try to get it out the first time and, more shreds will make an annual appearance in your garden for the next three years. Honestly, i hate this consumer grade stuff. I've pulled every kind imaginable out peoples yards and now use a front loader on it when i find it. ...and the front loader only gets MOST of it....

Answer 9

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Answer 10

it keeps the weeds to a minimum use it in landscaping where you don't care if the plants don't spread....it kinda keeps the plants in one spot