Posted: 7/19/2009 3:38:16 PM EDT
|
I see this in many garden departments, a black fabric roll, also called landscaping fabric. 3' x 50' for $2.50 a roll.
Anybody use it for anything? Can I use it instead of the black plastic some people use? Any pros or cons? |
|
I had to use it in my garden as well. I've got a patch of roughly 10'x25' that I absolutely could not control the weed problem in. Everything I tried failed, and I ended up having to just let the weeds have part of my garden. I went and bought a roll of this stuff, weed wacked and turned over as much of the garden as I could, I cut out rows for the plants and placed them in the rows after they have grown a bit in separate cups. So far it's working. There are still weeds that shoot up through the rows I cut, but those are easy enough to control. |
|
I think it's decent in *some* situations, but not many.
I only use it in larger commercial applications where I have only a few large shrubs and a good layer of mulch on top. I never recommend it for residential garden applications. At best I'd use it under a (flat) gravel bed. If you use normal mulch, you will get weeds growing on top. It also turns into a *huge* PITA if you need to move things around or plant something else. Finally, a few years down the line it will be a huge hassle to remove. IMHO it gets used as a shortcut to good bed prep. It's much better to spray roundup to kill everything, wait a week, then till and rake out as many roots as possible. Rinse and repeat as necessary. Once you have a good clean bed, only then plant. It's even better if you start the fall before. Put down a couple of layers of newspaper, and a thick (6" +) layer of leaves. Let stand over the winder, then till it all under in the spring. |
|
Its good around shrubs under a layer of mulch. Overlap the edges by about 6 inches or weeds will grow through the overlap.
Weeds can take root in the mulch on top of the fabric, but they are easy to pull if you get them before the roots get into the fabric. I don't know that I would use it in a vegetable garden. Not because it does anything bad but because its a pain to remove. |
|
Quoted: I see this in many garden departments, a black fabric roll, also called landscaping fabric. 3' x 50' for $2.50 a roll. Anybody use it for anything? Can I use it instead of the black plastic some people use? Any pros or cons? I use this for customers and for my own use in landscapes. It's great for foundation plantings that are mostly shrubs. If you're growing any type of annual or perennial flowers in it, forget it. It's too much of a problem to create a space for them to grow and spread out in the way customers want them to develop. It's GREAT for keeping weeds down and letting air and water through, which you need in order to create a low maintenance bed or border. But it also prevents the spread of desirable plants like perennials which you want to grow, spread and create larger clumps for division. Also, if it's a really invasive weed or grass, the landscape fabric won't stop it. For instance, if it's Bermuda grass, forget it. Nothing I've found stops Bermuda grass. Crabgrass CAN grow through the fabric. Johnson grass WILL grow through the fabric. For powerful weeds like this, you have to dig them. Or you have to kill them. With something stronger than the approved dosage of Roundup. The best way to use landscape fabric (and I do use it for customers who don't want to fool with their landscapes) is to completely remove the sod––I do it with a sod cutter or by hand with a spade or shovel (God, this is a lot of work) down to bare earth, then I lay down the fabric and cover it with a thick layer of mulch. Maintenance involves pulling the few weeds that germinate in the mulch, which are all shallow-rooted, and it's easy work. I prefer to not use chemicals like glyphosphate (Roundup) if I can avoid it, because often I don't get total kill with it. Also if there are existing plantings that I want to keep, I risk damage to the plantings from the herbicide drift. If I do use chemical broad-spectrum herbicide like Roundup, then when I till the bed, there are inevitably some roots that still live and grow and cause me problems later. The best way, for me, is to totally remove the sod, manually. YMMV. I then cut holes in the fabric to plant shrubs, then mulch, as stated above. This works great for simple foundation plantings, or for a shrub border. I have used landscape fabric under a gravel bed in a landscape, but not in a driveway application. It worked well under 'gravel as mulch'. If you want anything more complex than a shrub border, the landscape fabric gets in the way and becomes a problem. I don't think it's that big of a pain to remove, however, when it's time to rejuvenate the shrub border. I will say that the "planned" life of a shrub border is, at best, ten to fifteen years as a rule. And the fabric does not last that long. Five years in, you'll get invasive weeds if you have them anywhere around, and you'll be spraying herbicide to control them anyhow. The fabric is NOT, however, as big of a PITA as black plastic, which just causes WAY more problems than it solves if you ever want anything to grow there, or if, God forbid, you ever need to remove it, or you stay long enough for it to degrade and start breaking into small pieces and getting everywhere.....sheesh.... Black plastic as a long-term landscape solution is...well....dubious at best. Oh, and rubber tires ground up into mulch––that is spawn from hell. Don't do it. |
|
I used some of this stuff in my veggy garden this year... I HATE pulling weeds...
Didnt buy the cheap black stuff, bought it before and we got some tough ass weeds here... I bought the grey stuff HD had and cut it into 16" wide strips and run it down the aisles of the veggy garden then mulch on top... So far it's doing what i wanted... We'll see in the fall if I can roll it up for reuse.. |