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Old 25-05-2007, 07:26 PM posted to alt.home.lawn.garden
Red[_2_] Red[_2_] is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Mar 2007
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Default Flower bed: use landscape fabric or just plain mulch?

On May 24, 9:39 pm, Himanshu wrote:
Zone 5 (Southern New England).

While renovating a flower bed a previous owner had put in, but it's my
first time, so and I'm wondering whether to use landscape fabric to
prevent weeds, or just go with mulch instead. Any opinions?

If I put landscape fabric I'd probably put a layer of much to hide the
fabric anyway.

How does one go about fertilizing and amending the soil if fabric is
used? I've read it's beneficial to lay down a few inches of shredded
leaves before winter sets in and I'm wondering if that means landscape
fabric would be more trouble than it's worth? Is it supposed to be
removed and replaced every so often?

FWIW, the lawn that's near this flower bed has weeds -- all kinds, I can
identify only dandelion, clover and maybe creeping charlie.

Thanks,

--
Himanshu


Landscape fabric has small pin holes that allow water & nutrients to
pass through but too small for roots. It does a good job to prevent
weeds from sprouting underneath, but does not stop running weeds/
grasses from coming over the top. However those are easy to pull out
since they cannot take root in the fabric. A thin layer of pine straw
over the fabric hides it, holds it in place, and takes longer to
compost into soil.

Red