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You need to be very careful in using landscape fabric. For example, I moved into a house last July that had huge beds, two 50x10 roughly, of tiger lilies growing through landscape fabric. The previous folks had mulched to hide the fabric. The weeds loved growing in the mulch above the fabric. I also found that water permeated the fabric very slowly if at all. I ripped it out and found peony shoots trying to get beyond the little slit made for them. It must have sounded great to the owners when a landscaper proposed the fabric, and it probably worked for a few years...
Landscape fabric is designed for agricultural use for one season. It's also found a successful role in hardscaping - covered with rock and stone. But it's not good for ornamental gardening or under shrubbery - tends to smother the roots.
Agree with you. It works great in a vegetable garden for one season, maybe 2. It is not a permanent solution. More trouble than it is worth in general landscapes or flower beds.
"Weed barriers" are at best short term solutions that have long term negative impacts. True, weeds won't grow roots through the barriers. They just grow on top of them. Even the most porous of the barriers reduces nutrient and air flow to plant roots and tend to silt up over time. But yes, landscapers love them because they make a great story for clients.
I have to remove a very large area on a slope of old plastic weed barrier and I am dreading it.
When it is gone I will either hand pull the weeds or find a yard guy that can put me on his route for quick service calls.
We drink from a well and raise bees.
We will never use chemicals on our property.
"Weed barriers" are at best short term solutions that have long term negative impacts. True, weeds won't grow roots through the barriers. They just grow on top of them. Even the most porous of the barriers reduces nutrient and air flow to plant roots and tend to silt up over time. But yes, landscapers love them because they make a great story for clients.
The house we bought put heavy duty weed barriers everywhere, and true, no weeds come through, they just grown on top. They also put the irrigations pipes underneath which drives DH nuts when repairing them. I'm on the fence, because weeds do grow more where I know the barrier is torn.
Six of one, half dozen of another.
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When I moved into our current house 5 years ago, there were two large beds of essentially tiger lillies and lots of weeds in front of the house. Over a two year period, I dug out the lillies (huge clumps several feet across) and ripped up the weed barrier, along with tons of weeds on top. Over the next two years, the beds came to life - peonies popped up all over the place, about a dozen, some beautiful hostas started growing, lots of beautiful sedum, and some iris. Evidently all these things were dormant, trapped under the landscape fabric. Or, the stuff wasn't letting enough water and nutrients through for growth.
I also put cardboard down over winter (no mulch) to keep spring weeds out of my veg bed. It works pretty well, but we have a lot of wind here, so it all needs weighing down, so ends up being way more work than it should be. But it really helps come spring and is soft enough to plant right through, so if I have enough again this winter, I'll do the same. Or newspapers. I've never tried them under mulch but wonder if all those layers might do a little bit better job.
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