GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

16-07-2004, 04:02 AM

(Cat) wrote in
:

In article ,
Salty Thumb wrote:
If the rate of your debris deposition is such that you are developing
a weed supporting layer of humus in a short time frame, then you
should forget about using landscape fabric and think about selling
topsoil.

Heh. I wish. The only place that I'm using landscape fabric is under
a gravel walk - and I'm still getting weeds [granted not in vast
numbers, but some] through the fabric and 3-4" of gravel. Life is
persistent.

Are they are shoots from adjacent plants or wind blown seeds? I also
get rye encroachment from the lawn in one bed, but they are harassed by a
weed whacker and pulled if they make it past the brick edging. Never had
the rye grow up from under the fabric though.

I don't know what you guys did with your fabric that makes you say
that. My flower bed was over run with all sorts of growth. I just
laid the landscape fabric on top then about 2" or less of large pine
nuggets. Nothing grew from below (aside from the chive things
mentioned before) and anything that grows on top is picked off by hand
whenever I feel like doing so.

What zone are you in, and what are you growing? I've had weeds grow
up through/on top of landscape fabric in zones 6,7, and 11, in very
different environments.

I don't know what zone. I just look at the little map on the seed
packets, I'm right at a line in SE Virginia. When the weeds grew on top,
weren't they easily picked off?

I've got a couple of rose bushes. Sedums, chrysanthemums, coleus (dead)
the rest I might be able to identify if I saw the names. I did not pick
out most of the plants, but I do remember buying a dianthus whatever that
is.

Landscape fabric is hardly expensive at 3'x50' for $10. If you get
minimum wage and save 5 hours weeding, it pays for itself in labor
savings*. It certainly is less expensive than periodic applications
of herbicide. The DuPont landscape fabric package I have is
guaranteed for 15 years when covered with at least 2" of mulch. The
Weedblocker brand package has an 'absolute' guarantee. If you had
such a bad experience and paid an exorbitant amount, perhaps you
should try to get your money back.

Landscape fabric is a right pain to pull back out again though. It's
all very well if you don't expect to change what you've got planted,
or the shape of your beds - but if you're moving plants around, or
changing the shape of your beds, you've now got an annoying artificial
fibre tangled through your perennials and being a royal pain to
remove.

I don't know, I've seen feeder roots stapling the fabric to ground. I
didn't think it was all that hard to pull off, and if needed I think I
could have severed them easily from below with a broad knife. Other
parts of the fabric I looked at recently don't have the feeder roots and
comes off easily. I don't use the landscape fabric pegs, the mulch and
edging seems to hold it down well enough.

Newspaper is cheap - but more to the point, it's also biodegradeable,
and comes apart nicely if you start to move things around. You also
don't need to worry about ground stables, or what to do about the
holes left behind after you rearrange plants.

Well sure if you are planting a bunch of annuals maybe fabric isn't such
a good idea. The thing I don't like about laying newspaper is it is
like Tara, Gone With The Wind. I tried it for killing grass, I guess it
works okay. But I really like the fact that landscape fabric doesn't
decay and I don't have soil and mulch all mixed in together. It makes
moving the mulch around easier. Sure it's a little clumsy if you want to
move a hole, but if you just make X slits in the fabric, you can just
close the X back up and still get most of the protection without needing
to patch it with another piece.

Buying a 2 cu. ft. bag of pine bark nuggets every 2+ years or so is
hardly what I would call burdensome or expensive.

Heh. Your garden area is clearly much, much smaller than mine ; I
think I'm in the 7 cu yd of mulch realm by now - and I've added
another 6 cu ft of mulch to the small [10x6 triangle] bed in the front
to top up the mulch that's settled over the winter.

Ha, you just got a big ole flower garden don't you? Mine it's just a
couple of flower beds in front of the house, each probably 4'x25'. I
think I may have used between 1 and 2 cu. yards total mulch.

At any rate, I'd certainly agree that there are uses for landscape
fabric - but in my case, it's only for areas that I expect to remain
unchanging for years - paths and the like.

cheers!

Same to you :-)