Hi,

a friend of mine moved into a new house and we
went to check out his garden. We found that large
sections of his garden beds had sheetings of black
plastic covered by a layer of mulch. Growing in
that were some not so healthy looking camelias.
I thought that was a really weird thing to do. The soil
underneath the plastic looked like dead dust with
no evidence of any bug life.
Why do people use those? It seems that the plastic
kills the soil off and it would also keep the water away
from the roots.
what's the purpose of them, just to keep weeds away?

barb.