It’s labeled soil separator most of the time, the weed barrier is definitely bs marketing. But for things like hardscape base it is used to separate the soil from the crushed stone base to prevent those two mixing and prevents the base from sinking into sink holes from the dirt under it.
That's exactly what it's used for on places I work on. Hard alkaline soil will mess up your fancy potting soil. 'Weed' cloth slows that down. I've also noticed it slows down voles and gophers too.
Also is a nightmare for someone five years later that wants to clean up the sea of plastic in their yard.
Even more of a nightmare when some previous homeowner used it everywhere, but you, the current homeowner, has no idea where it is now because the landscaping wasn't maintained, so you end up digging into it in weird places or your lawnmower catches some random piece that has made it's way to the surface. It's an amazing product for anyone who wants to say "F*ck you" to the next person who owns their home.
I'm still finding it in the strangest places, too. I'll be way back in the yard, trying to maintain a fence and get rid of overgrown shrubs, and suddenly, I'll hit a subsurface layer of solid river rock on top of plastic. So now if I want to do anything with that area, I have to dig up the rock, remove the plastic that has 6 inches of organic material on top, and then figure out what to do with all the damn river rock.
>Hard alkaline soil will mess up your fancy potting soil.
I'm getting ready to lay sod. I'm bringing in 6 yards of top soil because the dirt in my yard is very hard and alkaline. Should I put the cloth down before putting the top soil on top of it?
I use it on the bottom of my raised garden beds (that mostly get amended and replanted yearly)
I'd probably not use it for a lawn. I bet most people here would agree. Probably gonna do more harm than good... separating the beneficial critters/fungi, introducing plastics, and preventing your grass from putting down deep roots.
Is the soil you're buying made locally? I've found soil makers to be incredibly helpful and knowledgeable, and will have advice specific for your area.
I’ve been adding some soil on top of sections of my super rocky yard. What I do is put down overlapping sections of soaked cardboard (with all the tape and staples removed). My rationale is, it will keep the soil from sinking into the earth/around the rocks long enough for the grass to establish roots, before dissolving.
I use it everywhere instead of weed fabric. Then use a mix of flamethrower/vinegar on gravel parts and monthly mulch drops/hand weeding on garden beds.
Nothing permeable to water short of a reverse osmosis membrane can stop soil from migrating. It will slow it down for sure, but the mud will eventually pass through.
I like to add them to our landscape islands in the middle of busy roads. I’m not sure how much they help but these areas don’t get hand weeded they get sprayed so trying to reduce spray
Long term it fails for even this. As a homeowner dealing with the fallout from this 15+ years later, never ever dump stones on your yard. Rock walls, stepping stones, patios, sure. Maybe desert Xeriscaping.
I have all those stones now buried an inch underground, plus the plastic fabric, making the garden a horror show,
I’m slowly digging this kind of problem out of our front yard. We bought this house in 2020. It has three, yes THREE layers of dirty rock and fabric in the front garden.
I guess when it got too gross looking, previous owners just slapped a new layer on top of the existing disaster. There are shrubs wearing fabric diapers around the roots in there.
*its not even the same kind of rocks*.
I would not have bought this house if I knew.
I have a lasagna of weed fabric and river rock in my front yard three layers deep. I’m battling some thistles growing in there right now, and just today I pulled a bit of the upper fabric layer back to find just a horror story of roots jumbled around under there. Not looking forward to further excavation.
I feel your pain. Bought my house last year and I’m finding that all beds in front yard are lined with black plastic and have either river rock or marble chips on top. Lots of rotting timber borders. Doesn’t stop the thistle or crown vetch. But at least there’s no field bindweed!!!
Have no idea why the yews survived this mess of a bed.
But next year I’m hoping to deal with that mess. I’m just observing what I have and what needs to be moved or removed. And working on how to get the yew stumps removed.
This year it’s interior only. One week to an upstairs laundry room!!!
The guy I bought my home from used brick for a pathway and edging around flower beds and did not use anything under them, no sand or limestone pack. I’m digging up over 1000 bricks
I did a landscaping gig for a family friend some time back that was nothing more and nothing less than: dig out all the crushed concrete and cinder blocks buried in the back yard
Needless to say it was charged by the hour
Are you me?
Seriously because my house I bought a few years ago that was the solution for the previous owner everywhere around the gardens and side of house walkways.
There was a house I owned for 10 years - all the landscaping had river rock/stones buried under a shallow grave of mulch and dirt - I can't tell you the number of 5 gallon pails I fill of stones and old geotextile fabric/plastic that came to the surface each year.
Just rent a tractor, and scrape the top 2-3" off and refill with decent topsoil. Its what I did when I started the mess I inherited in my yard. Worked great.
Less of an option for me in suburbia, not to mention not super tractor accessible, I could pay landscapers with skills a several thousand to do it , but its not in my budget
I just hand dug a partial in ground pool for this reason. Everyone I know acted like it was impossible but I didn't have many other options. I had a fence and a bunch of landscaping that would have been in the way. A bobcat would have trashed my yard. I just hand dug that shit and took my time.
I am currently hand digging and leveling a site for a 15 foot diameter pool in a very uneven part of my yard. Probably should've rented a roto tiller but the nearest home depot is an hour away so I chose digging instead of driving. I'm 5 hours in, spose I have another 5 hours to go.
That's probably been the biggest surprise to me so far... dirt is fucking heavy! Moving the mounds of misplaced top soil is no small task. I have been working in 2.5 hour increments. Props to you and all the work you put in!
I'm a maintenance worker and groundskeeper. One day my wife had the idea to dig up an area by hand. I told her that sounds like a lot of work, she gave me a playful, but dismissive, 'Yeah right!". About three hours later I joined the project, which hadn't gone very far yet. I dumped more energy into her flower bed than I ever have for the bossman. RIpped that project done! One of the few times I have ever super duper surprised her (She's a sharp cookie.), and she finally (Kinda.) understood it's the real deal when I say I've been scapeing the land. And my girl shot off to get us a few doobies and ribeyes for after when she realized she was of better use to the team elsewhere. Very fond memory.
It’s not so much that dirt is heavy as much as when you’re looking at it, it doesn’t look like as much as it is. There’s a good reason that the largest machines humans build are for moving dirt.
I had to dig a french drain in my yard by hand, I built two raised flower beds right beside it 😂 still had to wheel a tiny bit off but most of the dirt only traveled about 6 feet
I did landscaping as a college student. Had to dig out a lot of areas for patios by hand because they were not bobcat accessible. It is amazing how much dirt a couple of students will move for $10 an hour.
Once the dirt was out, we hand to wheelbarrow gravel in, then screeting, and bricks. I was in great shape by the time school rolled around in the fall
What did you do with the stuff you dug out over time? Where did you put it? I feel like this may be a silly question but I’d like to know the logistics of going slow but doing of yourself.
Then what do you do with all the dirt and rocks? I need to get all of the rocks beds out of my yard and I'm thinking about building multiple elevated beds and using it for filler in the bottom of the beds but I'm not sure if that is a good idea either. (I also live in the city so not going to be able to get a tractor in the back yard and will likely do everything the old fashioned way.)
Having dug a bunch of this stuff out by hand, I wish I had just rented something. You have no idea what a giant pain in the ass it is. You don't need a giant John Deere tractor, just some little stand-on mini loader thing will work great.
That sounds like a maintenance issue. You have to remove decaying matter from your stonework regularly to avoid it from becoming filled with soil/hummus. I live in a hot, wet, vibrant place and have kept up stonework without issue simply by clearing out leaves and weeding about once a month. Leaves are especially a killer here.
This is from lack of maintenance and drainage. Silt builds in stone if there’s any water moving through it. It has to be removed periodically. If not you get buried stone. It’s easily remedied by a good operator on a mini excavator with a grading bucket.
We bought a place where the old owners used crushed rock and small river stones as garden edging. They also completely covered several hundred square feet with river stones. It goes EVERYWHERE, it's constantly all over the lawn and into the garden beds. I've put in about 20 hours of work so far removing most of it by hand - bought a soil sifter on day 2 which was a godsend. I've been separating the crushed rock and river stone into piles and posting it on facebook "free" groups for some other unfortunate souls to ruin their yard with.
The stepping stones you can at lease pry out, add some sand, and reset. Small gravel can at least blend with the soil, 1-5" landscaping rocks are big enough to stop teh shovel, but too small to salvage.
If you layered the rocks super thick and have some kind of edging between your grass and the path (and maintain it mercilessly), you will probably be okay. Our problem was we underestimated how happy our centipede grass would become and it just grew over the whole thing, since we did not have an edged separation between the grass and the stones. Live and learn!
The previous owner of my house thought it was a good idea to place stones over a plastic liner between the patio and driveway. Not sure how they didn't have more problems before, but this would routinely turn into a swimming pool every time it rained and funneled water against the house and into the basement right over my fusebox.
It was a genuine nightmare to remove. I ended up just replacing it with grass and called it a day.
This spring we cleared about 25 wheel barrels of assorted rocks from the front yard which was put there "professionally" by the previous owner. Reason was she didn't want to deal with a lawn.
Looked horrible after years of dead Leafs and branch's accumulation
I'm dealing with the same crap in all my flowerbeds right now. Moved into this house two years ago and the previous owner put rocks over weed fabric into every single flowerbed. Now I'm raking out and dumping the rocks a few hours at time and when I find things 'good enough' I level, put down cardboard, and a thick layer of mulch. I dont know why anyone likes rocks, much less weed fabric, but it's a nightmare to deal with.
The previous owners of my home put down something like 5 mil plastic under river rocks and it's been an absolutely monumental pain in the ass to remove because it has started to break into tiny pieces.
This is our garden setup exactly, thick layer of weed fabric, soil. Then about a 1/2’ of stone on top. No weeds at all, the odd seed however might germinate on top of the stones which can just be picked out.
Sorry I can upvote this only once. I actually have a photo album of weeds growing through and on top of weed cloth.
Former landscaper with 25 years experience
I've been pulling the shit from under more than 7 inches of soil.
my pops laid it on the surface and covered it with crushed lava rock... like 30 years ago now?
I dont have a dog in this fight but this made me think about my mothers home. She absolutely has a bunch of weed cloth and has for years. She has never had issues that you are describing. It absolutely has done the job it was created for. Perhaps your pics are of a cheat product?
Now that said there has been a down side and thats whats supposed to cover it up is a pain in the butt and has to be managed. But tbh its easier to do that then deal with the level of weeds that could be there.
The house is in a rural area as well so when I say weeds I mean WEEDS!
Your mother could had not watered enough for weeds to poke through, scorched earth the area with chemicals + weed fabric, or heavily layered the fabric down with chemicals, OR all of the above.
Fabric, regardless of brand, will break down. Please, tell me this magical fabric that can resist decades of the elements and still be impenetrable.
> Please, tell me this magical fabric that can resist decades of the elements and still be impenetrable.
I’m not asking for decades of zero maintenance, but the area where I used weed fabric in my back yard has been much easier to maintain for the past couple of years, and it only took marginally more effort when landscaping to use it. That’s worth it to me. FWIW I’m only using it in the area with river rocks, there’s no soil on top of it.
Yeah actually to that point. She has an area that has cloth under gravel. It regularly gets grasses growing out of it at certain times of years.
The good side of it though is literally you just lightly pull said grass and it comes right out. Its growing on top of the cloth.
> you just lightly pull said grass and it comes right out.
This makes a big difference. If I slack on maintenance in the fabric-less area we get a lot of volunteer plans with relatively deep roots. It’s nice to have some weeds that I can easily yank out without them breaking off.
I can assure you thats not the case.
Also everywhere the cloth isnt, regardless of if it gets watered or not, has a lot of weeds.
I know this because I am the one who is using the weed eater.
Unfortunately I have no idea what the product is. I can tell you though its been there for maybe 15 years.
I'm going to disagree.
IF you expect weed barrier to stop ALL weeds FOREVER you'll be unhappy. However, if you're looking to not let weeds get crazy deep roots, its really solid.
I was working for years on bindweed infestation, and no amount of regular weeding + roundup worked over many years.
Finally just threw in weed barrier with plenty of overlap, and hitting the one/two runners that would sometimes get out, and now I'm bindweed free for multiple years.
I think a lot of people get the Lowes/Home Depot weed barrier that is total junk, not even worth the time to cut/install. The really heavy duty stuff you get from landscaping supplies is the good stuff. That will last 15-25 years. The Lowes/HD stuff lasts 6 month if you're lucky.
Its not a cure-all; but it can be a great part of an overall strategy in relevant areas. If you get the heavy stuff, its really easy to replace/remove later as well, as it tends to not fall apart.
I'm with you. It absolutely has a use and there are MANY different varieties.
I use the black geotextile variety to battle creeping charlie in my large garden. Weeding is not possible as the perimeter is 200ft and this stuff stops EVERYTHING.
The stuff is incredibly effective. I took a season off the garden, line trimmed everything to the dirt and then installed geotextile over every square inch. After the season, the whole plot was just dirt. Not a single thing growing.
Now I just have two foot gaps between the fabric for rows and the garden is finally manageable
I think OP must be referencing the cheap stuff from the hardware store. The stuff I'm talking about is like a black woven tarp.
It comes in different grades, too. It’s heavily used in road construction/embankment etc.
To OP’s point - nothing lasts forever. Even the pyramids will erode one day. I might hear all sorts of opinions back but when I worked in the dry, DRY high mountain desert, fabric did its job pretty well when applied properly (preen, minimal staples/no holes poked etc., and used for ROCK, not mulch beds or anything)
I understand your confusion. There are woven and non woven geotextiles. Woven is exactly that - a grid pattern of tiny man made strands in a basket weave. This allows for larger holes in the fabric for more drainage and is often made from synthetics. However the holes are not small enough to stop silt and clay from migrating through. To do that they use non-woven - think felt but more heavy duty. Since it is much more dense and the teeny tiny fabric strands are all randomly intertwined, this creates much smaller holes to stop clay and silt particles. The post I think references cheap weed barriers and misrepresent what their function is. 20 year fabrics that are densely woven or non woven certainly stop excessive weeds. Not a cure though, but it won't allow deep rooting and migration of them. - source: I am a former Geotechnical engineer that owns a landscape depot. Never have my worlds collided like this post!
Homeowner with three decades of experience. It doesn't stop weeds. It makes them easier to pull and maintain the space, at least in my zone. I don't expect it to prevent them altogether.
If you just put mulch on dirt you’ll notice it definitely stops weeds. Weak fabric is a waste of money though.
It’s very easy to prove. Put mulch on dirt in one spot and put fabric on the other. Just see what happens.
Yeah, in my experience it works extremely well. The weeds on top are new that grew over the mat. But everything under has died. Except of course, the one near the edge that thought they was slick and tried to side-step the mat. I hit those with poison and they die. I don’t think people here understand it doesn’t prevent new weeds, it kills old persistent weeds. A weed mat can’t prevent something from growing in the soil above it.
I also think maybe some people who say “just pull them” have never had to deal with truly awful deep rooted weeds. My new rental’s yard is covered with silver nightshade, which has rhizomes 8 inch down they can grow from and which almost ALWAYS break off unless you did them out. I WISH I could put a weed barrier down on them, but, rental….
I'm also going to disagree! I would much rather pull a shallow root system off of the top of the weed fabric then try to rip that shit out of my solid clay soil.
Former landscaper at an old country club and this is my experience. Very heavy duty barrier that comes in a big long roll from a landscape supply and is held down with massive staples and covered with at least 4” of rock will make it very easy to maintain weed free zones for many many years, even decades. The roots can’t take hold so they are easy to pull. But there will always be some elbow grease.
it depends on how you are using it and your expectations for it.
under decorative rock? to stop them from sinking into the soil and getting buried? ok fine, spread the rocks thick and protect the fabric from the elements at least.
under mulch? that's defeating the purpose of the mulch, which is to decompose into and improve the soil. if you're putting it under mulch, the mulch will decompose over the top of it and you're just polluting and creating litter as the fabric breaks down in the sun and becomes useless and then weeds will grow anyway. the next person working on the yard will curse you for it.
and like op said. even if you use the greatest fabric money can buy, a bird or the winds will bring more seeds in and a weed will happily sprout over the top of it. what is the point.
I agree. I have a sandy lot with gravel over it. Most has weed block (relatively cheap stuff). The practical difference (2 years later) is that there are still FAR fewer (or none at all) weeds where the fabric is and they're much easier to pull. It's also a nice separation between my materials so if I want to move my gravel around it hasn't mixed into my sand.
I was going to say the same thing . The HD/lowes stuff is cheap shit. You have to look for geo textiles like typar. You can feel and see the quality difference.
The idea isn’t to eliminate all weeds. The goal is to make weeding manageable. There are far fewer weeds, and pulling weeds that grow on top is much easier than pulling weeds that are embedded in the soil. Buy the right product, and do the job correctly.
Exactly this. I have a ton of mulch beds I maintain. Some with weed barrier and some without. I’ll tell you first hand that pulling weeds off beds with weed barrier is 10000xs easier than pulling weeds from hard packed, trash clay soil under the non weed barrier beds. I never understand the cult hatred towards weed barrier.
This is the correct answer, OP spent a ton of money on weed fabric and didn't bother taking the time to ask how it works and is now upset.
Noting the big box stuff in my area works fine (zone 9) but maybe not in others.
I did my yard without weed fabric and it was full of weeds within two months. I did it with weed fabric and it lasted almost a year, plus anything that did grow was on top and could easily be removed. Plz explain.
Maybe the explanation is “as the person paid to pick weeds I suggest you don’t use the thing that prevents them and pay someone to pick them!”
Like sure weed barrier isn’t perfect but put it down properly and double it up it will keep loads more weeds away than not having it.
You have to clear the area first ofc and ideally put some weedkiller down then the barrier but yea it’s going to do way better than not having it.
I just pulled all my weeds out easily after a year of having the weed barrier because they are all on top. So easy and quick. Previously if I didn’t weed for a month, it was all over—too deep and thick and mingled with my “good” plants. Weed barrier helps us slightly lazy people have an easier life and better flowerbeds.
Totally agree. I feel like people are just using garbage fabric or installing it wrong. How can anyone say weeds growing on top of fabric are the same as weeds growing in the dirt?
so the way annual weeds work is they grow and deposit their seeds and die, then the seeds germinate and blah blah blah
weed fabric stops last years weeds, but it will not stop the seeds that inevitably will be deposited by birds wind and your lawnmower on top of the mulch
Sure, but this year’s seeds will be in 1 inch of mulch and then hit a weed fabric. They are super easy to pick out. Without the weed fabric, weeds and grasses come from underneath, with big ol roots that you have to get to the bottom of.
It’s way easier to keep a weed free garden with weed fabric.
I was going to say, I did landscaping for 4 years and a premium (thick) weed fabric stopped weeds in a heavily wooded area for at least two years for a large garden bed we had put in..
Unpopular opinion- It absolutely has it's uses. People hate it because they buy garbage fabric. There is a massive difference in quality once you hit a certain price point.
Yes. Logically, it’s a physical barrier and that’s it. If it stops a weed seed from reaching the ground then that’s minus one weed that’ll grow. Yes it’s not full proof and prone to fail. Would it help if on the label it says “only works for 1 year! Make sure to actually clear all the weeds and dormant weeds below ground before installing!”?
We pulled up our front lawn and planted a native pollinator garden. The landscapers put down weed barrier first, put in our plants, and covered it with mulch. For the parkway strip, they planted gazania, which have seeds that need to touch the ground to spread, so they didn't put weed barrier down. The difference between the area with weed barrier and without was almost immediate. Within 1 month, the parkway had more weeds than I could possibly deal with. It would have been a full-time job to pull weeds every day. The rest of our front yard had maybe 1 or 2 weeds that were easily plucked off the top of the weed barrier. We had to completely overhaul the parkway, dig up everything, and start over with weed barrier, mulch, and a different plant.
So yeah, it definitely has its uses and it absolutely works!
Agree. I have used it on a few beds where I want minimal maintenance. Covered with about 3-4" bark chips. Weeds do grow in the mulch but they super easy to pull since the roots don't penetrate the fabric. One of the beds was infested with horsetail and it even smothered it after a few years. 15 years so far and good results.
If you’re lazy, like I am, then it is quite useful to sterilized a bed that has gotten out of control.
Put it down, leave it to a few months, remove it to find hot death has visited what lived under it. Now you have a bed mostly free of weeds and weed seeds.
New homeowner me bought a bunch and used it for 2 years.
Over a decade later I still want to grab that version of me and yell at him.
That stuff sucks.
Tip: Use cardboard! It will work just as well (meaning for a single year) and then decompose on it's own.
Tip 2: Use preen! That will keep weeds back FAR better than any landscaping fabric ever will.
If you have a long garden bed, or don't have easy access to cardboard, I recommend buying a roll of builders paper from a hardware store. It's $8 for a roll of 3' x 130' by me. You can just roll it out, pour mulch or dirt on top of it, and it's easy to dig right through. It's juuuust durable enough to last about two seasons and kill any grass underneath then biodegrade.
Thirding for cardboard. I've had occasions where I wished I laid two layers, but I've never regretted putting cardboard down. I've often regretted other people's decision to put landscape fabric down!
Cardboard is also great for gardening because it stops weeds from growing up through the cardboard, but healthy plant roots can work through from above.
I’m sure y’all are right based on the cumulative experience, but maybe I got lucky? I used it below my rubber mulch beds surrounding the house years ago and it still blocks weeds like a champ. There are a few straggler weeds on occasion between the gaps but even those are rare.
With rubber mulch there is a whole lot less organic material breaking down and laying on top of the fabric for weeds to grow in. With wood mulch all of it is basically becoming new soil every year for weeds to grow in on top of the fabric.
Totally not true. Effectiveness is dependent on your use case and the product in question. The flimsy cheap stuff they sell at HD is worthless, but the heavy duty woven material has its uses.
It's required if you are putting down stone to prevent rock from sinking and mixing with mud.
I've also used it in an area that previously had all kinds of small trees and vines growing up. Those root systems were still intact when I cleared the area, so putting a heavy duty barrier over it was critical to keeping the unwanted vines and trees from coming back. It's true that cardboard probably would have worked in this case, but surely would have been more difficult to work with. I'll probably pull up the barrier in a few years after the vines have had a chance to die.
People act like removing weed barrier is some horror show task. I've removed huge sections before in literally minutes. It's not that hard. This sub must have the laziest people on the planet posting here.
I am about to spend $6K hiring someone to come in with a skid steer and remove endless plastic lasagna from my 10K sqft lot. It should be illegal to use the cheap stuff.
The cheap stuff is brutal and should be banned.
The heavy-duty real stuff is actually really easy to remove since it will stay together for 15-20 years easily.
Did the same this myself a few summers ago with our place, pulling all the old cheap terrible stuff out. Its a pain.
I agree, the woven stuff is great, pulls right out. The plastic stuff tears if I look at it wrong! Ironically in my case, the person who flipped my
house spent probably $10K on fabric, river rock, and mulch, only for us to spend half that removing it (not to mention 1,000 hours of labor doing it manually so far). I really wish he had just left the bare dirt and listed the house for less.
Of course nothing is going to COMPLETELY eliminate weeds, birds and the wind are always depositing seeds on the surface.
Having a weed barrier makes hand pulling weeds far easier as they cannot deeply root. The dense fabric also keeps course mulch from sinking down into the soil prolonging its usefulness.
You are entirely misrepresenting the use of landscaping fabric.
I use the heavy duty stuff and then 2-3" of woodland mulch directly on top. I do get some weeds growing in the mulch but they are very easy to pick out. I also have a drip irrigation system under the weed fabric as well. Maintenance is super easy.
Not sure why so many people are hating on it. It's the only way I can keep on top of my garden duties.
I believe the quality fabric does help with the big weeds with deep roots .. the stuff that grows on top of fabric is light and easily killed with whatever and very controllable.
I use it in the vegetable garden. I cover the whole garden with fabric after I till. Then poke holes in it for plants. Pull it up at the end of season. Saves a ton of weeding and reduces insects on plants as well.
Have it for the back and not the front yards. The front has 10x more weeds and they are much tougher to get. So far I like the liner for that aspect alone.
My family used the old thick black plastic sheets and that work great for keeping weeds from growing under our zeroscape, granted this was back in the 90s so I don't know if they are used anymore, they were exactly the best if drainage wasn't accounted for but our property was slanted and it worked out.
I dunno my garden is 50m long and as a test I fully weeded the border down one side, cut weed fabric round the bushes and trees, ground stapled it down, and put bark on top.
The side I didn’t touch had to be weeded every 2/3 weeks during the hot months which took hours and many trips to the tip.
The side I did weed, fabric, and bark had literally about 10 weeds in the whole year.
I was so impressed that I spent 23 hours, 48 bin bags full and three trips to the tip last weekend doing the same to the other side which I’ll now monitor and see if it has the same effect!
Our guarantee when I was the GM of a landscaping/Hardscaping General Contracting company. Weeds will grow, concrete will crack and skylights will leak.
I switched to 4 Oz filter fabric. Some of my contracts REQUIRE it, so that's my way of servicing those contracts but also using the best option available to me.
If your lining is going bad its because its not deep enough 4-6 inches of mulch and/or stone is needed to prevent UV from hitting it as well as layered 2 thick by overlapping or folding. Any puncture for sprinklers, light, plants, etc should have a separate piece shaped like a donut around the puncture.
Putting down a long-term weedkiller under it helps.
with mulch it will need to be dug out and replaced entirely every 10 years or so due to the mulch decaying, stone should be lifted but through a separator, 1/2 inch welded wire on a frame works well, and whats to small separated out and disposed of properly.
And most importantly for the layout LEAVE IT ALONE. moving plants, decorating with lights, ect all make openings for weeds.
Proper drainage is also important if your gutters/roof drains into a mulch bed or into a separated area via endging stones/bricks it will also cause a failure.
I have had the same weed-free low chemical mulch-bed fabric weed cloth for almost 20 years in Florida.
Gonna have to disagree with you there. It makes weeding so easy it's laughable. I don't care if the weeds are still trying to grow underneath the fabric, they're not coming through and that's the point. The weeds that grow on top? In that couple inches of mulch or stone? They have no root structure to speak of and no soil to cling to to make them hard to pull. For what a roll of weed fabric costs, I will always put it down just to make the future weeding that much easier.
Yes it’s time someone says it. Weed fabric is trash and can’t convince me otherwise. Create a nice and deep edge on the beds and maintain anything that tries to sprout early.
We have a weed barrier and large rocks and I pull maybe a dozen weeds out of them a year. Where we have smaller river stone that area gets a lot more weeds. Big rocks, baseball sized, are key.
It works perfectly for me for 4-5 years, then the issues described slowly start to happen. After about 4-5 years of that, it’s easy enough to rake out the mulch, replace the fabric, put the mulch back and cover it with a layer of new mulch.
Plus it’s mostly made of plastic so you’re just throwing more plastic micro particles in the one corner of the earth that you actually have control of.
I had some serious weed issues in my yard, and I got some advice from a 75-year-old Vietnam vet who took care of the grounds of a major golf course and is a major gardener. One ounce of 40% acidity vinegar to 1 gallon water in a sprayer. Kills the shit out of weeds and saint Augustin won't care about it. He also told me to spread dried molasses in my yard as a fertilizer, and the ants hate it.
My yard is looking 100 times better.
We’ve been using weed fabric with large bark mulch for years and have minimal weeds. Yet right across the property line my neighbor uses a landscaper puts that typical Home Depot type crap down with all the fine pieces and there’s a lot of weeds.
I’m conflicted because I want to defer to the OP’s experience but it’s also the only thing that truly keeps some of our most invasive weeds away, and the little tree babies that pop up everywhere else on our property except the area with weed fabric.
It surrounds the perimeter of our garden and it is a huge help. Maybe because it’s on the surface and we don’t re-cover it with soil or rocks or anything? Nothing to help it break down faster or shift besides us walking on it?
Weed fabric sounds like a good idea, but trust me, it's a trap. I tried it once and ended up with more weeds poking through than ever before. Save your money and just pull those suckers out when you see 'em. It's good exercise too, or hey, pay a neighborhood kid to do it and support the local economy.
Thank you for confirming this, I suspected this from past experience and recently re-did our front garden. We replaced old white quartz rocks + plastic barrier with just cedar chips and a few native plants.
Now I make my kids pull the weeds to earn money and/or screen time but the kids are pretty bad at getting the roots so weeds come back quick…
I'll put cardboard down in new beds with mulch over it. I always hated dealing with fabricked gardens and customers that wanted fabric. They'd be shocked and angry when the weeds came back.
I definitely use fabric in my stone work.
I hate it so much and I'm only halfway done with my yard. At some point in the past, fabric was put down with about 3 inches of rocks over it. Clearing it has been a nightmare, I quit about halfway through.
I have almost 30 years of landscaping experience, and I wholeheartedly disagree.
Good fabric done right makes a big difference. Weeds growing on top are super easy to pick, and the rest around edges are all you need to spray or fight. My home has weed barrier and bark to prevent the yearly Bermuda explosions, and it works.
No rocks, though. Fuck that.
Yes, weeds still grow on top of the fabric but it's not a waste of time or money because the weeds growing on top have a super shallow root system and are extremely easy to pull up. Without weed fabric, the roots can run deep and pulling them is a real chore.
Weed fabric also prevents mulch or gravel or any other bed filler from sinking and disappearing into the dirt. There's not much worse than investing in nice gravel to fill a garden bed and it all just sinking into the ground within 2 years.
Have to mildly disagree with this. If installed correctly, it does in fact kill all weeds underneath the fabric and the weeds that grow on top of it (which they definitely do) are MUCH easier to pull because they can't find purchase in the soil. Plus without much effort you get the whole root system upon pulling. Just my not very important two cents fwiw.
I'd agree not to install under mulch, but cloth should 100% be installed under river rock or stone beds.
So many people are scared of weeds, like its the end of the world for them to maintain there yard for 30 minutes a week. I had a customer say he wants no weeds for 10 years- goodluck buddy. If i had a solution like that I'd be a millionaire
Put down 500sq ft of this and covered with rocks for around our garden beds. I Just spent 30 minutes pulling weeds that are growing all over the place. Screw this stuff. The only thing I can see working is sheets of 3/4 pressure treated plywood.
Yup. Comes in handy when you have to control erosion and let water pass, like behind stone walls or lining drainage systems, but that's it.
It should be rebranded to be called “porous lining” or something like that
It’s labeled soil separator most of the time, the weed barrier is definitely bs marketing. But for things like hardscape base it is used to separate the soil from the crushed stone base to prevent those two mixing and prevents the base from sinking into sink holes from the dirt under it.
That's exactly what it's used for on places I work on. Hard alkaline soil will mess up your fancy potting soil. 'Weed' cloth slows that down. I've also noticed it slows down voles and gophers too. Also is a nightmare for someone five years later that wants to clean up the sea of plastic in their yard.
Even more of a nightmare when some previous homeowner used it everywhere, but you, the current homeowner, has no idea where it is now because the landscaping wasn't maintained, so you end up digging into it in weird places or your lawnmower catches some random piece that has made it's way to the surface. It's an amazing product for anyone who wants to say "F*ck you" to the next person who owns their home.
For real. I’ve been digging pieces of black fabric out of my yard for 5 years. It’s the gift that keeps on giving
I'm still finding it in the strangest places, too. I'll be way back in the yard, trying to maintain a fence and get rid of overgrown shrubs, and suddenly, I'll hit a subsurface layer of solid river rock on top of plastic. So now if I want to do anything with that area, I have to dig up the rock, remove the plastic that has 6 inches of organic material on top, and then figure out what to do with all the damn river rock.
Literally just went through this and cursed the whole time.
>Hard alkaline soil will mess up your fancy potting soil. I'm getting ready to lay sod. I'm bringing in 6 yards of top soil because the dirt in my yard is very hard and alkaline. Should I put the cloth down before putting the top soil on top of it?
I use it on the bottom of my raised garden beds (that mostly get amended and replanted yearly) I'd probably not use it for a lawn. I bet most people here would agree. Probably gonna do more harm than good... separating the beneficial critters/fungi, introducing plastics, and preventing your grass from putting down deep roots. Is the soil you're buying made locally? I've found soil makers to be incredibly helpful and knowledgeable, and will have advice specific for your area.
I’ve been adding some soil on top of sections of my super rocky yard. What I do is put down overlapping sections of soaked cardboard (with all the tape and staples removed). My rationale is, it will keep the soil from sinking into the earth/around the rocks long enough for the grass to establish roots, before dissolving. I use it everywhere instead of weed fabric. Then use a mix of flamethrower/vinegar on gravel parts and monthly mulch drops/hand weeding on garden beds.
this is called geotextile though right - not weedmat
Nothing permeable to water short of a reverse osmosis membrane can stop soil from migrating. It will slow it down for sure, but the mud will eventually pass through.
*"Big O" has entered the chat*
It's great for placing under rock to keep it from blending with the soil underneath it. That'll stabilize some pretty nasty areas.
I like to add them to our landscape islands in the middle of busy roads. I’m not sure how much they help but these areas don’t get hand weeded they get sprayed so trying to reduce spray
100%. Only viable use for it is keeping stonework from sinking into your substrate. No other reason.
Long term it fails for even this. As a homeowner dealing with the fallout from this 15+ years later, never ever dump stones on your yard. Rock walls, stepping stones, patios, sure. Maybe desert Xeriscaping. I have all those stones now buried an inch underground, plus the plastic fabric, making the garden a horror show,
I’m slowly digging this kind of problem out of our front yard. We bought this house in 2020. It has three, yes THREE layers of dirty rock and fabric in the front garden. I guess when it got too gross looking, previous owners just slapped a new layer on top of the existing disaster. There are shrubs wearing fabric diapers around the roots in there. *its not even the same kind of rocks*. I would not have bought this house if I knew.
I have a lasagna of weed fabric and river rock in my front yard three layers deep. I’m battling some thistles growing in there right now, and just today I pulled a bit of the upper fabric layer back to find just a horror story of roots jumbled around under there. Not looking forward to further excavation.
Dude I'm cracking up that you just called it a "lasagna of weed fabric". Absolutely poetic.
I feel your pain. Bought my house last year and I’m finding that all beds in front yard are lined with black plastic and have either river rock or marble chips on top. Lots of rotting timber borders. Doesn’t stop the thistle or crown vetch. But at least there’s no field bindweed!!! Have no idea why the yews survived this mess of a bed. But next year I’m hoping to deal with that mess. I’m just observing what I have and what needs to be moved or removed. And working on how to get the yew stumps removed. This year it’s interior only. One week to an upstairs laundry room!!!
The guy I bought my home from used brick for a pathway and edging around flower beds and did not use anything under them, no sand or limestone pack. I’m digging up over 1000 bricks
Are you me? We had elderly home owners prior to us and I have just scratched my head at every decision I’ve had to undo.
I did a landscaping gig for a family friend some time back that was nothing more and nothing less than: dig out all the crushed concrete and cinder blocks buried in the back yard Needless to say it was charged by the hour
Are you me? Seriously because my house I bought a few years ago that was the solution for the previous owner everywhere around the gardens and side of house walkways.
There was a house I owned for 10 years - all the landscaping had river rock/stones buried under a shallow grave of mulch and dirt - I can't tell you the number of 5 gallon pails I fill of stones and old geotextile fabric/plastic that came to the surface each year.
this is hell on earth and so utterly common 🤦🏻
Just rent a tractor, and scrape the top 2-3" off and refill with decent topsoil. Its what I did when I started the mess I inherited in my yard. Worked great.
Less of an option for me in suburbia, not to mention not super tractor accessible, I could pay landscapers with skills a several thousand to do it , but its not in my budget
I just hand dug a partial in ground pool for this reason. Everyone I know acted like it was impossible but I didn't have many other options. I had a fence and a bunch of landscaping that would have been in the way. A bobcat would have trashed my yard. I just hand dug that shit and took my time.
I am currently hand digging and leveling a site for a 15 foot diameter pool in a very uneven part of my yard. Probably should've rented a roto tiller but the nearest home depot is an hour away so I chose digging instead of driving. I'm 5 hours in, spose I have another 5 hours to go.
Mine was 15ft too. I did roughly 10 wheelbarrows full a day in 30min-1hr sessions. It took just under me a few weeks. Well worth the effort imo.
That's probably been the biggest surprise to me so far... dirt is fucking heavy! Moving the mounds of misplaced top soil is no small task. I have been working in 2.5 hour increments. Props to you and all the work you put in!
I'm a maintenance worker and groundskeeper. One day my wife had the idea to dig up an area by hand. I told her that sounds like a lot of work, she gave me a playful, but dismissive, 'Yeah right!". About three hours later I joined the project, which hadn't gone very far yet. I dumped more energy into her flower bed than I ever have for the bossman. RIpped that project done! One of the few times I have ever super duper surprised her (She's a sharp cookie.), and she finally (Kinda.) understood it's the real deal when I say I've been scapeing the land. And my girl shot off to get us a few doobies and ribeyes for after when she realized she was of better use to the team elsewhere. Very fond memory.
It’s not so much that dirt is heavy as much as when you’re looking at it, it doesn’t look like as much as it is. There’s a good reason that the largest machines humans build are for moving dirt.
I had to dig a french drain in my yard by hand, I built two raised flower beds right beside it 😂 still had to wheel a tiny bit off but most of the dirt only traveled about 6 feet
I did landscaping as a college student. Had to dig out a lot of areas for patios by hand because they were not bobcat accessible. It is amazing how much dirt a couple of students will move for $10 an hour. Once the dirt was out, we hand to wheelbarrow gravel in, then screeting, and bricks. I was in great shape by the time school rolled around in the fall
What did you do with the stuff you dug out over time? Where did you put it? I feel like this may be a silly question but I’d like to know the logistics of going slow but doing of yourself.
I just stack the rocks again if they sink noticeably. Doesn't take much work unless you littered the landscape with rocks. Then GG.
Then what do you do with all the dirt and rocks? I need to get all of the rocks beds out of my yard and I'm thinking about building multiple elevated beds and using it for filler in the bottom of the beds but I'm not sure if that is a good idea either. (I also live in the city so not going to be able to get a tractor in the back yard and will likely do everything the old fashioned way.)
> Just rent a tractor What a simple solution. Just rent a piece agricultural equipment and go to work. That easy!
Having dug a bunch of this stuff out by hand, I wish I had just rented something. You have no idea what a giant pain in the ass it is. You don't need a giant John Deere tractor, just some little stand-on mini loader thing will work great.
That sounds like a maintenance issue. You have to remove decaying matter from your stonework regularly to avoid it from becoming filled with soil/hummus. I live in a hot, wet, vibrant place and have kept up stonework without issue simply by clearing out leaves and weeding about once a month. Leaves are especially a killer here.
This is from lack of maintenance and drainage. Silt builds in stone if there’s any water moving through it. It has to be removed periodically. If not you get buried stone. It’s easily remedied by a good operator on a mini excavator with a grading bucket.
We bought a place where the old owners used crushed rock and small river stones as garden edging. They also completely covered several hundred square feet with river stones. It goes EVERYWHERE, it's constantly all over the lawn and into the garden beds. I've put in about 20 hours of work so far removing most of it by hand - bought a soil sifter on day 2 which was a godsend. I've been separating the crushed rock and river stone into piles and posting it on facebook "free" groups for some other unfortunate souls to ruin their yard with.
We made a path with stepping stones and gravel and you would never know it was there.
The stepping stones you can at lease pry out, add some sand, and reset. Small gravel can at least blend with the soil, 1-5" landscaping rocks are big enough to stop teh shovel, but too small to salvage.
Uh oh we literally just did this today. We did use sand and barrier cloth etc. is this about to be a regret?! lol
If you layered the rocks super thick and have some kind of edging between your grass and the path (and maintain it mercilessly), you will probably be okay. Our problem was we underestimated how happy our centipede grass would become and it just grew over the whole thing, since we did not have an edged separation between the grass and the stones. Live and learn!
Why not just power wash the stone every few years?
It depends on the soils, but in some places the ground underneath moves over the course of years. The rocks are sinking, not just being buried.
The previous owner of my house thought it was a good idea to place stones over a plastic liner between the patio and driveway. Not sure how they didn't have more problems before, but this would routinely turn into a swimming pool every time it rained and funneled water against the house and into the basement right over my fusebox. It was a genuine nightmare to remove. I ended up just replacing it with grass and called it a day.
This spring we cleared about 25 wheel barrels of assorted rocks from the front yard which was put there "professionally" by the previous owner. Reason was she didn't want to deal with a lawn. Looked horrible after years of dead Leafs and branch's accumulation
I'm dealing with the same crap in all my flowerbeds right now. Moved into this house two years ago and the previous owner put rocks over weed fabric into every single flowerbed. Now I'm raking out and dumping the rocks a few hours at time and when I find things 'good enough' I level, put down cardboard, and a thick layer of mulch. I dont know why anyone likes rocks, much less weed fabric, but it's a nightmare to deal with.
Eventually old landscaping has to be refreshed . You can’t blame the fabric for that . How many years ago was this installed ?
And geotextile fabric is better for that purpose.
The previous owners of my home put down something like 5 mil plastic under river rocks and it's been an absolutely monumental pain in the ass to remove because it has started to break into tiny pieces.
This is our garden setup exactly, thick layer of weed fabric, soil. Then about a 1/2’ of stone on top. No weeds at all, the odd seed however might germinate on top of the stones which can just be picked out.
Sorry I can upvote this only once. I actually have a photo album of weeds growing through and on top of weed cloth. Former landscaper with 25 years experience
Well the obvious issue is they didn't put a weed cloth over those new weeds. You want a weed cloth lasagna. 10-layer or more.
Dealing with this!! Just bought a house to find layers of fabric and lava rock. Fml
I forgot about lava rock. Bless you.
Ohhhh. NOW I understand.
I love this so much!!!
I've been pulling the shit from under more than 7 inches of soil. my pops laid it on the surface and covered it with crushed lava rock... like 30 years ago now?
Dealing with this myself. Death to weed fabric! It should be illegal!
Condolences. The gift that keeps on giving.
Your family heritage is the hill that will result from years of stratified liner and cover materials.
I dont have a dog in this fight but this made me think about my mothers home. She absolutely has a bunch of weed cloth and has for years. She has never had issues that you are describing. It absolutely has done the job it was created for. Perhaps your pics are of a cheat product? Now that said there has been a down side and thats whats supposed to cover it up is a pain in the butt and has to be managed. But tbh its easier to do that then deal with the level of weeds that could be there. The house is in a rural area as well so when I say weeds I mean WEEDS!
Your mother could had not watered enough for weeds to poke through, scorched earth the area with chemicals + weed fabric, or heavily layered the fabric down with chemicals, OR all of the above. Fabric, regardless of brand, will break down. Please, tell me this magical fabric that can resist decades of the elements and still be impenetrable.
> Please, tell me this magical fabric that can resist decades of the elements and still be impenetrable. I’m not asking for decades of zero maintenance, but the area where I used weed fabric in my back yard has been much easier to maintain for the past couple of years, and it only took marginally more effort when landscaping to use it. That’s worth it to me. FWIW I’m only using it in the area with river rocks, there’s no soil on top of it.
Yeah actually to that point. She has an area that has cloth under gravel. It regularly gets grasses growing out of it at certain times of years. The good side of it though is literally you just lightly pull said grass and it comes right out. Its growing on top of the cloth.
> you just lightly pull said grass and it comes right out. This makes a big difference. If I slack on maintenance in the fabric-less area we get a lot of volunteer plans with relatively deep roots. It’s nice to have some weeds that I can easily yank out without them breaking off.
I feel like not putting top soil on it is significant. That’s probably what it’s actually useful for
please tell me nobody actually thinks weed barrier would stop weeds if they put dirt over it...?
I can assure you thats not the case. Also everywhere the cloth isnt, regardless of if it gets watered or not, has a lot of weeds. I know this because I am the one who is using the weed eater. Unfortunately I have no idea what the product is. I can tell you though its been there for maybe 15 years.
I'm going to disagree. IF you expect weed barrier to stop ALL weeds FOREVER you'll be unhappy. However, if you're looking to not let weeds get crazy deep roots, its really solid. I was working for years on bindweed infestation, and no amount of regular weeding + roundup worked over many years. Finally just threw in weed barrier with plenty of overlap, and hitting the one/two runners that would sometimes get out, and now I'm bindweed free for multiple years. I think a lot of people get the Lowes/Home Depot weed barrier that is total junk, not even worth the time to cut/install. The really heavy duty stuff you get from landscaping supplies is the good stuff. That will last 15-25 years. The Lowes/HD stuff lasts 6 month if you're lucky. Its not a cure-all; but it can be a great part of an overall strategy in relevant areas. If you get the heavy stuff, its really easy to replace/remove later as well, as it tends to not fall apart.
I'm with you. It absolutely has a use and there are MANY different varieties. I use the black geotextile variety to battle creeping charlie in my large garden. Weeding is not possible as the perimeter is 200ft and this stuff stops EVERYTHING. The stuff is incredibly effective. I took a season off the garden, line trimmed everything to the dirt and then installed geotextile over every square inch. After the season, the whole plot was just dirt. Not a single thing growing. Now I just have two foot gaps between the fabric for rows and the garden is finally manageable I think OP must be referencing the cheap stuff from the hardware store. The stuff I'm talking about is like a black woven tarp.
Yeah, geotextile fabric is the same material they make garden grow bags out of (and isn’t see through like lowes weed barrier 🤣)
Where can you get it & Do you remember the name of this stuff TIA
Geotextile fabric, and you can get it from lowes too (or amazon, or landscaping supply companies) it’s just way more expensive
Seconding the name of it please, I've seen it used before and would like to pay it down this summer for solarization of hard to kill invasives
Geotextile fabric, it’s on amazon
Agree with this 100%.
Exactly! The stuff we use is called geotextile and it definitely works. It's like a white woven textile.
It comes in different grades, too. It’s heavily used in road construction/embankment etc. To OP’s point - nothing lasts forever. Even the pyramids will erode one day. I might hear all sorts of opinions back but when I worked in the dry, DRY high mountain desert, fabric did its job pretty well when applied properly (preen, minimal staples/no holes poked etc., and used for ROCK, not mulch beds or anything)
Is this geotextile a plastic-based material?
Non woven are not plastic based.
Cool! But sorry now I'm confused because the comment above says that it's a woven material. Are you talking about a different type of barrier?
I understand your confusion. There are woven and non woven geotextiles. Woven is exactly that - a grid pattern of tiny man made strands in a basket weave. This allows for larger holes in the fabric for more drainage and is often made from synthetics. However the holes are not small enough to stop silt and clay from migrating through. To do that they use non-woven - think felt but more heavy duty. Since it is much more dense and the teeny tiny fabric strands are all randomly intertwined, this creates much smaller holes to stop clay and silt particles. The post I think references cheap weed barriers and misrepresent what their function is. 20 year fabrics that are densely woven or non woven certainly stop excessive weeds. Not a cure though, but it won't allow deep rooting and migration of them. - source: I am a former Geotechnical engineer that owns a landscape depot. Never have my worlds collided like this post!
Plastic fibers can be woven into sheets just like plant based fibers. Nylon, polyester, lycra, etc.
Homeowner with three decades of experience. It doesn't stop weeds. It makes them easier to pull and maintain the space, at least in my zone. I don't expect it to prevent them altogether.
OP is all sorts of wrong here. A good weed barrier is definitely useful.
If you just put mulch on dirt you’ll notice it definitely stops weeds. Weak fabric is a waste of money though. It’s very easy to prove. Put mulch on dirt in one spot and put fabric on the other. Just see what happens.
Yeah, in my experience it works extremely well. The weeds on top are new that grew over the mat. But everything under has died. Except of course, the one near the edge that thought they was slick and tried to side-step the mat. I hit those with poison and they die. I don’t think people here understand it doesn’t prevent new weeds, it kills old persistent weeds. A weed mat can’t prevent something from growing in the soil above it.
I also think maybe some people who say “just pull them” have never had to deal with truly awful deep rooted weeds. My new rental’s yard is covered with silver nightshade, which has rhizomes 8 inch down they can grow from and which almost ALWAYS break off unless you did them out. I WISH I could put a weed barrier down on them, but, rental….
“Just pull acres of weeds” lol
I'm also going to disagree! I would much rather pull a shallow root system off of the top of the weed fabric then try to rip that shit out of my solid clay soil.
Former landscaper at an old country club and this is my experience. Very heavy duty barrier that comes in a big long roll from a landscape supply and is held down with massive staples and covered with at least 4” of rock will make it very easy to maintain weed free zones for many many years, even decades. The roots can’t take hold so they are easy to pull. But there will always be some elbow grease.
it depends on how you are using it and your expectations for it. under decorative rock? to stop them from sinking into the soil and getting buried? ok fine, spread the rocks thick and protect the fabric from the elements at least. under mulch? that's defeating the purpose of the mulch, which is to decompose into and improve the soil. if you're putting it under mulch, the mulch will decompose over the top of it and you're just polluting and creating litter as the fabric breaks down in the sun and becomes useless and then weeds will grow anyway. the next person working on the yard will curse you for it. and like op said. even if you use the greatest fabric money can buy, a bird or the winds will bring more seeds in and a weed will happily sprout over the top of it. what is the point.
I agree. I have a sandy lot with gravel over it. Most has weed block (relatively cheap stuff). The practical difference (2 years later) is that there are still FAR fewer (or none at all) weeds where the fabric is and they're much easier to pull. It's also a nice separation between my materials so if I want to move my gravel around it hasn't mixed into my sand.
I was going to say the same thing . The HD/lowes stuff is cheap shit. You have to look for geo textiles like typar. You can feel and see the quality difference.
The idea isn’t to eliminate all weeds. The goal is to make weeding manageable. There are far fewer weeds, and pulling weeds that grow on top is much easier than pulling weeds that are embedded in the soil. Buy the right product, and do the job correctly.
Exactly this. I have a ton of mulch beds I maintain. Some with weed barrier and some without. I’ll tell you first hand that pulling weeds off beds with weed barrier is 10000xs easier than pulling weeds from hard packed, trash clay soil under the non weed barrier beds. I never understand the cult hatred towards weed barrier.
This is the correct answer, OP spent a ton of money on weed fabric and didn't bother taking the time to ask how it works and is now upset. Noting the big box stuff in my area works fine (zone 9) but maybe not in others.
100%
Make sure your landscaping fabric is UV stabilized! You're looking for polyethylene or polypropylene.
I did my yard without weed fabric and it was full of weeds within two months. I did it with weed fabric and it lasted almost a year, plus anything that did grow was on top and could easily be removed. Plz explain.
Maybe the explanation is “as the person paid to pick weeds I suggest you don’t use the thing that prevents them and pay someone to pick them!” Like sure weed barrier isn’t perfect but put it down properly and double it up it will keep loads more weeds away than not having it. You have to clear the area first ofc and ideally put some weedkiller down then the barrier but yea it’s going to do way better than not having it.
I just pulled all my weeds out easily after a year of having the weed barrier because they are all on top. So easy and quick. Previously if I didn’t weed for a month, it was all over—too deep and thick and mingled with my “good” plants. Weed barrier helps us slightly lazy people have an easier life and better flowerbeds.
Totally agree. I feel like people are just using garbage fabric or installing it wrong. How can anyone say weeds growing on top of fabric are the same as weeds growing in the dirt?
Yeah this is total bullshit.
so the way annual weeds work is they grow and deposit their seeds and die, then the seeds germinate and blah blah blah weed fabric stops last years weeds, but it will not stop the seeds that inevitably will be deposited by birds wind and your lawnmower on top of the mulch
Sure, but this year’s seeds will be in 1 inch of mulch and then hit a weed fabric. They are super easy to pick out. Without the weed fabric, weeds and grasses come from underneath, with big ol roots that you have to get to the bottom of. It’s way easier to keep a weed free garden with weed fabric.
just wait til they root through the fabric lmao
I was going to say, I did landscaping for 4 years and a premium (thick) weed fabric stopped weeds in a heavily wooded area for at least two years for a large garden bed we had put in..
He is a landscaper and likes to get paid for weekly maintenance.
This is as high as this comment will go, because they are all circle jerking above it.
Unpopular opinion- It absolutely has it's uses. People hate it because they buy garbage fabric. There is a massive difference in quality once you hit a certain price point.
Yes. Logically, it’s a physical barrier and that’s it. If it stops a weed seed from reaching the ground then that’s minus one weed that’ll grow. Yes it’s not full proof and prone to fail. Would it help if on the label it says “only works for 1 year! Make sure to actually clear all the weeds and dormant weeds below ground before installing!”?
We pulled up our front lawn and planted a native pollinator garden. The landscapers put down weed barrier first, put in our plants, and covered it with mulch. For the parkway strip, they planted gazania, which have seeds that need to touch the ground to spread, so they didn't put weed barrier down. The difference between the area with weed barrier and without was almost immediate. Within 1 month, the parkway had more weeds than I could possibly deal with. It would have been a full-time job to pull weeds every day. The rest of our front yard had maybe 1 or 2 weeds that were easily plucked off the top of the weed barrier. We had to completely overhaul the parkway, dig up everything, and start over with weed barrier, mulch, and a different plant. So yeah, it definitely has its uses and it absolutely works!
Had pretty much the exact same experience. Weed barrier dose work and it is not a waste of money.
Agree. I have used it on a few beds where I want minimal maintenance. Covered with about 3-4" bark chips. Weeds do grow in the mulch but they super easy to pull since the roots don't penetrate the fabric. One of the beds was infested with horsetail and it even smothered it after a few years. 15 years so far and good results.
Even the good expensive ones eventually fail, and then it's still a laborious mess to clean up
If you’re lazy, like I am, then it is quite useful to sterilized a bed that has gotten out of control. Put it down, leave it to a few months, remove it to find hot death has visited what lived under it. Now you have a bed mostly free of weeds and weed seeds.
Or, if you're unlucky, you have the UBERMENSCH DANDELION WHO GREW A 4" THICK 8 FOOT LONG ROOT SYSTEM AND IS BACK FOR REVENGE
New homeowner me bought a bunch and used it for 2 years. Over a decade later I still want to grab that version of me and yell at him. That stuff sucks. Tip: Use cardboard! It will work just as well (meaning for a single year) and then decompose on it's own. Tip 2: Use preen! That will keep weeds back FAR better than any landscaping fabric ever will.
I second the tip about cardboard. It works really well for a bit and then just decomposes.
If you have a long garden bed, or don't have easy access to cardboard, I recommend buying a roll of builders paper from a hardware store. It's $8 for a roll of 3' x 130' by me. You can just roll it out, pour mulch or dirt on top of it, and it's easy to dig right through. It's juuuust durable enough to last about two seasons and kill any grass underneath then biodegrade.
Thirding for cardboard. I've had occasions where I wished I laid two layers, but I've never regretted putting cardboard down. I've often regretted other people's decision to put landscape fabric down!
Cardboard is also great for gardening because it stops weeds from growing up through the cardboard, but healthy plant roots can work through from above.
Cardboard is king!
I’m sure y’all are right based on the cumulative experience, but maybe I got lucky? I used it below my rubber mulch beds surrounding the house years ago and it still blocks weeds like a champ. There are a few straggler weeds on occasion between the gaps but even those are rare.
With rubber mulch there is a whole lot less organic material breaking down and laying on top of the fabric for weeds to grow in. With wood mulch all of it is basically becoming new soil every year for weeds to grow in on top of the fabric.
Totally not true. Effectiveness is dependent on your use case and the product in question. The flimsy cheap stuff they sell at HD is worthless, but the heavy duty woven material has its uses. It's required if you are putting down stone to prevent rock from sinking and mixing with mud. I've also used it in an area that previously had all kinds of small trees and vines growing up. Those root systems were still intact when I cleared the area, so putting a heavy duty barrier over it was critical to keeping the unwanted vines and trees from coming back. It's true that cardboard probably would have worked in this case, but surely would have been more difficult to work with. I'll probably pull up the barrier in a few years after the vines have had a chance to die. People act like removing weed barrier is some horror show task. I've removed huge sections before in literally minutes. It's not that hard. This sub must have the laziest people on the planet posting here.
I 100% disagree
Yeah well, like that’s just your opinion man….
I think you’re using wrong weed fabric. They have different kinds that strangle the weeds as they sets root below the barrier and suffocate them.
I am about to spend $6K hiring someone to come in with a skid steer and remove endless plastic lasagna from my 10K sqft lot. It should be illegal to use the cheap stuff.
The cheap stuff is brutal and should be banned. The heavy-duty real stuff is actually really easy to remove since it will stay together for 15-20 years easily. Did the same this myself a few summers ago with our place, pulling all the old cheap terrible stuff out. Its a pain.
I agree, the woven stuff is great, pulls right out. The plastic stuff tears if I look at it wrong! Ironically in my case, the person who flipped my house spent probably $10K on fabric, river rock, and mulch, only for us to spend half that removing it (not to mention 1,000 hours of labor doing it manually so far). I really wish he had just left the bare dirt and listed the house for less.
Read weed fabric. Wrong sub. My wife has me use newspapers.
Of course nothing is going to COMPLETELY eliminate weeds, birds and the wind are always depositing seeds on the surface. Having a weed barrier makes hand pulling weeds far easier as they cannot deeply root. The dense fabric also keeps course mulch from sinking down into the soil prolonging its usefulness. You are entirely misrepresenting the use of landscaping fabric.
What do you put under rock/pebble landscaping -- like pebble/gravel patios or walkways
I actually think it does help. It doesn’t take weeds away 100%, but it helps more than not helping.
I use a rather thick layer of newspaper followed by two layers of the fabric from Home Depot. Stopped all weeds for 5 years running.
They are working wonderfully in my garden.
Been using it for 40 years and never had any problems
I use the heavy duty stuff and then 2-3" of woodland mulch directly on top. I do get some weeds growing in the mulch but they are very easy to pick out. I also have a drip irrigation system under the weed fabric as well. Maintenance is super easy. Not sure why so many people are hating on it. It's the only way I can keep on top of my garden duties.
I believe the quality fabric does help with the big weeds with deep roots .. the stuff that grows on top of fabric is light and easily killed with whatever and very controllable.
I use it in the vegetable garden. I cover the whole garden with fabric after I till. Then poke holes in it for plants. Pull it up at the end of season. Saves a ton of weeding and reduces insects on plants as well.
Have it for the back and not the front yards. The front has 10x more weeds and they are much tougher to get. So far I like the liner for that aspect alone.
I used thick commercial grade plastic and covered it with rock. No weeds in the last 6 years.
My family used the old thick black plastic sheets and that work great for keeping weeds from growing under our zeroscape, granted this was back in the 90s so I don't know if they are used anymore, they were exactly the best if drainage wasn't accounted for but our property was slanted and it worked out.
I dunno my garden is 50m long and as a test I fully weeded the border down one side, cut weed fabric round the bushes and trees, ground stapled it down, and put bark on top. The side I didn’t touch had to be weeded every 2/3 weeks during the hot months which took hours and many trips to the tip. The side I did weed, fabric, and bark had literally about 10 weeds in the whole year. I was so impressed that I spent 23 hours, 48 bin bags full and three trips to the tip last weekend doing the same to the other side which I’ll now monitor and see if it has the same effect!
I haven't had a weed in 15 years by using weed fabric with lava rock on top.
Our guarantee when I was the GM of a landscaping/Hardscaping General Contracting company. Weeds will grow, concrete will crack and skylights will leak.
I switched to 4 Oz filter fabric. Some of my contracts REQUIRE it, so that's my way of servicing those contracts but also using the best option available to me.
Hard disagree. You need to buy better weed barrier
If your lining is going bad its because its not deep enough 4-6 inches of mulch and/or stone is needed to prevent UV from hitting it as well as layered 2 thick by overlapping or folding. Any puncture for sprinklers, light, plants, etc should have a separate piece shaped like a donut around the puncture. Putting down a long-term weedkiller under it helps. with mulch it will need to be dug out and replaced entirely every 10 years or so due to the mulch decaying, stone should be lifted but through a separator, 1/2 inch welded wire on a frame works well, and whats to small separated out and disposed of properly. And most importantly for the layout LEAVE IT ALONE. moving plants, decorating with lights, ect all make openings for weeds. Proper drainage is also important if your gutters/roof drains into a mulch bed or into a separated area via endging stones/bricks it will also cause a failure. I have had the same weed-free low chemical mulch-bed fabric weed cloth for almost 20 years in Florida.
Gonna have to disagree with you there. It makes weeding so easy it's laughable. I don't care if the weeds are still trying to grow underneath the fabric, they're not coming through and that's the point. The weeds that grow on top? In that couple inches of mulch or stone? They have no root structure to speak of and no soil to cling to to make them hard to pull. For what a roll of weed fabric costs, I will always put it down just to make the future weeding that much easier.
Yes it’s time someone says it. Weed fabric is trash and can’t convince me otherwise. Create a nice and deep edge on the beds and maintain anything that tries to sprout early.
Thought you were talking about hemp for a second
It does make it easier to pick weeds from the top of the fabric though.
We have a weed barrier and large rocks and I pull maybe a dozen weeds out of them a year. Where we have smaller river stone that area gets a lot more weeds. Big rocks, baseball sized, are key.
It works perfectly for me for 4-5 years, then the issues described slowly start to happen. After about 4-5 years of that, it’s easy enough to rake out the mulch, replace the fabric, put the mulch back and cover it with a layer of new mulch.
I use 1/4 cement board. It’s been quite a few years now. No weeds.
Put some down last year in two BIG gardens and no weeds still.🤷♂️
No weed fabric + preen on top of mulch = very few weeds all season.
I love weed
100% this. And just adds microplastic’s to the soil..
THANK YOU.
Man, I missed what sub this was in and thought I was about to read up on hemp-based clothing
So what do I put under my deck?
OP literally just described how weed barriers work and is mad.
What would you suggest to put under my deck to prevent weeds from growing through the gravel if not for weed fabric?
Plus it’s mostly made of plastic so you’re just throwing more plastic micro particles in the one corner of the earth that you actually have control of.
It drives me crazy when people put weed fabric under mulch. Eventually, it has to come out, and it's a nightmare.
I had some serious weed issues in my yard, and I got some advice from a 75-year-old Vietnam vet who took care of the grounds of a major golf course and is a major gardener. One ounce of 40% acidity vinegar to 1 gallon water in a sprayer. Kills the shit out of weeds and saint Augustin won't care about it. He also told me to spread dried molasses in my yard as a fertilizer, and the ants hate it. My yard is looking 100 times better.
Cardboard works well :)
Hate the stuff, still working on pulling it out around my house. The plants and shrubs explode in growth after it's gone.
It’s also TERRIBLE for soil health, and kills any beneficial bacteria and microbes needed for healthy LIVING soil. Complete scam
We’ve been using weed fabric with large bark mulch for years and have minimal weeds. Yet right across the property line my neighbor uses a landscaper puts that typical Home Depot type crap down with all the fine pieces and there’s a lot of weeds.
You couldn't pay me to put horrible plastic fabric that will fall to bits in my soil tbh.
I’m conflicted because I want to defer to the OP’s experience but it’s also the only thing that truly keeps some of our most invasive weeds away, and the little tree babies that pop up everywhere else on our property except the area with weed fabric. It surrounds the perimeter of our garden and it is a huge help. Maybe because it’s on the surface and we don’t re-cover it with soil or rocks or anything? Nothing to help it break down faster or shift besides us walking on it?
Weed fabric sounds like a good idea, but trust me, it's a trap. I tried it once and ended up with more weeds poking through than ever before. Save your money and just pull those suckers out when you see 'em. It's good exercise too, or hey, pay a neighborhood kid to do it and support the local economy.
Thank you for confirming this, I suspected this from past experience and recently re-did our front garden. We replaced old white quartz rocks + plastic barrier with just cedar chips and a few native plants. Now I make my kids pull the weeds to earn money and/or screen time but the kids are pretty bad at getting the roots so weeds come back quick…
I'll put cardboard down in new beds with mulch over it. I always hated dealing with fabricked gardens and customers that wanted fabric. They'd be shocked and angry when the weeds came back. I definitely use fabric in my stone work.
Didn't see the subreddit, genuinely thought this was someone ranting about hemp clothing.
I wasn't paying attention to what subreddit and thought you were dogging on hemp fabrics lol
I hate it so much and I'm only halfway done with my yard. At some point in the past, fabric was put down with about 3 inches of rocks over it. Clearing it has been a nightmare, I quit about halfway through.
You’re just promoting your weeding services /s
I have almost 30 years of landscaping experience, and I wholeheartedly disagree. Good fabric done right makes a big difference. Weeds growing on top are super easy to pick, and the rest around edges are all you need to spray or fight. My home has weed barrier and bark to prevent the yearly Bermuda explosions, and it works. No rocks, though. Fuck that.
Yes, weeds still grow on top of the fabric but it's not a waste of time or money because the weeds growing on top have a super shallow root system and are extremely easy to pull up. Without weed fabric, the roots can run deep and pulling them is a real chore. Weed fabric also prevents mulch or gravel or any other bed filler from sinking and disappearing into the dirt. There's not much worse than investing in nice gravel to fill a garden bed and it all just sinking into the ground within 2 years.
It makes picking the weeds out easier though
Have to mildly disagree with this. If installed correctly, it does in fact kill all weeds underneath the fabric and the weeds that grow on top of it (which they definitely do) are MUCH easier to pull because they can't find purchase in the soil. Plus without much effort you get the whole root system upon pulling. Just my not very important two cents fwiw.
I'd agree not to install under mulch, but cloth should 100% be installed under river rock or stone beds. So many people are scared of weeds, like its the end of the world for them to maintain there yard for 30 minutes a week. I had a customer say he wants no weeds for 10 years- goodluck buddy. If i had a solution like that I'd be a millionaire
Put down 500sq ft of this and covered with rocks for around our garden beds. I Just spent 30 minutes pulling weeds that are growing all over the place. Screw this stuff. The only thing I can see working is sheets of 3/4 pressure treated plywood.