Landscape fabric, weed barrier and weed barrier fabric are names for the same product. It is a black mesh type of plastic that is used extensively in landscaping to keep weeds out of your garden. Does it keep the weeds out? Does it let water through to the plants? Lets have a look at the effectiveness of landscape fabric.
Landscape Fabric – Weed Barrier Cloth
This is how landscape fabric is advertised to work. You place it on the ground and cover it with mulch. Weeds already in your soil can’t grow through the cloth so they die. Weeds can’t grow on the cloth, so any sprouting seeds also die. Voila! No weeds.
Don’t Buy Into the Landscape Fabric Myth.
It is true that seeds sprouting under the cloth will not grow through it. However, strong perennial weeds will eventually grow through or around it. Many perennial weeds can grow quite a distance under ground and since landscape fabric comes in 3 and 4 foot wide roles they only need to grow a few feet to find an opening.
If you use a thin cover of mulch, weeds do not grow in the mulch because it is just too dry there. But in no time at all you will see the landscaping fabric stick up through the mulch and then it looks terrible in your garden.
If you use more mulch to hide the weed barrier, wind and water deposits soil particles and plant remains onto the cloth. In no time at all you have the perfect seed mix sitting right above the weed barrier, and weeds start to grow. Believe me when I say that plant roots can grow through the holes in the landscape fabric.
Weed barrier cloth is no better for controlling weeds than a 4 inch layer of mulch.
Landscape Fabric Stops Rain
Weed barrier cloth is porous (ie it has holes in it) and it is advertised as ‘letting the rain flow through’. This is mostly a gardening myth. The reality is that some rain will go through the holes, but much of it flows over top of the cloth and away from your plants, which remain dry.
Weed Barrier Sucks the Life out of Your Soil
I’ve talked many times about the importance of life in the soil. Landscape fabric reduces the air reaching the soil, and prevents any new organic matter from getting to the surface of the soil. It does not take long and the dew worms, microbes and other soil life, which depends on air and food, either leave or die. When this happens, there is a reduction of nutrients for your plants, and soil structure starts to degrade. Neither is good for your plants.
Permanent Plantings are Damaged
In permanent landscapes, plant roots will grow into and through the landscape fabric. At some point in the future when it is replaced (needs to be replaced every 10 years or so), you will damage the roots.
Is There a Good Use for Landscaping Fabric?
Maybe. If you are planting trees in uncultivated land that is very weedy, there is a benefit to using the weed barrier around the tree for a few years in order to keep the weeds down, and give the tree a chance to get established. The tree roots have less competition for space and nutrients. The loss of water due to the weed barrier is offset by the fact that the weeds are no longer using the water. The landscape fabric should be removed after a couple of years once the tree is large enough and strong enough to compete with the weeds.
Recent scientific findings, reported by Dr Linda Chalker-Scott, suggest that a 6- 12 inch layer of wood chip mulch is just as effective. I have used the landscape fabric, as described above, for trees planted in fields, but have now switched to using just mulch.
More Reasons for NOT Buying Landscape Fabric
- it is a plastic and we don’t need more plastic in the environment
- plant roots growing on top of the fabric can’t withstand a drought as easily
- moving plants, and dividing plants is a nightmare because the weed barrier prevents you from digging new holes
- if you do get weeds they are near impossible to pull out
- it is relatively expensive for a product that does almost nothing!
References:
1) Photo Source: Two Women and a Hoe
I certainly agree that the fabric does not work. I laid some down and covered with rubber bark for my kids play area on a dirt surface, and within a month there was grass growing up through the fabric and the rubber bark. It was a mess. I couldn’t pull the grass up, there was just too much of it. I ended up having to just pull the fabric up to get the grass out. What a waste!
For many years I have collected newspapers ( only the black and white) for mulch in the rows between my raised beds. Laying sections shingle fashion, I then cover with collected leaves–4 to 6 inches. These look nice, and oak especially lasts the growing season. It’s kind of a pain to replace each year, but earthworms love it. For the plants, I use a new-ish product : bales of chopped hay/straw, which is mostly seed free and easy to snuggle close to stems. A bale goes a long way. Both vegetable and flower plants do quite well. And, btw, strawberries proliferate in the rows, and are deliciously productive.
Newspapers work well, but they do have a problem. They don’t let enough air and water to the soil under them. Worms don’t actually get much nourishment from them. Straw is a much better solution for soil and soil life.
Robert, this is a great post. Landscaping fabric is the worst solution to a weed problem. When I bought my house 7 years ago, I had a heck of a time getting up the old fabric that was being held tight by all of the weeds growing through it.
It was common in my neighborhood for all the gravel driveways to have fabric installed first (same contractor). Now they all have weeds and fabric coming up through the driveway!
Hi Robert,
Just commenting on your premise that landscape fabric does not work.
Weed fabric is really only suitable in certain situations certainly, but I have to say, if you buy a quality product then it will last for many many years and will allow for the penetration of water and through-flow of nutrients. A lot of people miss-use the fabric, and therefore make it less effective. As a company we only sell high quality fabric, not like the kind you find in the garden centre, but a woven style especially made for us. We provide guides like this (http://www.qvsshop.co.uk/blog/2014/11/20/usingweedsuppressant/) to try and make sure people use it properly and therefore limiting the amount they need to use. Its all about how and where you use it.
Thanks,
J
Have you done side by side studies to quantify the amount of water going through your fabric vs no fabric? Studies on other products show a definite reduction of water flowing through during a rain.
Hi Robert,
The fabric certainly slows the rate at which the water passes through certainly, however the weed fabric wouldn’t suppress any weeds if it didn’t.
J
I agree. I hate weed barrier fabric. I just mulch my plants and sprinkle down some preen. If you need to change anything in your garden over the years, weed barrier becomes a nightmare. Not to mention it DOES block out a lot of water from your established garden.
I mulched with woodchips and found that after two years it was great soil for weeds. I’m 69 and pulling weeds is not something I can keep up with. I have raised beds with subterraneous irrigation and piping for aeration under the weedcloth. My irrigation, aeration, and feeding are controlled with a 32-channel I/O card, zone valves and moisture sensors. I have not experienced any of the “downsides of weedcloth” that you describe, though I don’t have a conventional garden and don’t use the cheap perforated plastic. Using the more expensive landscape “weave” cloth will eliminate many of the problems you describe.
But only if you also invest in a lot of automation as you have described. Seems too complicated to me.
How do you know you are providing enough air not to affect the soil microbes? How do you measure their activity and populations? I think all you can really say is that using your system – you don’t see a problem.
I’ll stick to several inches of wood chips which work great. This solution is also better for the environment since I am using fewer commercially made products.
I have a slope in front of my house and had no success at a lawn. I am thinking of covering with 3in of beach gravel and, prior to looking at you column, I was proposing a good fabric cover underneath. Are you suggesting to go with a thicker gravel and drop the fabric?
Yes – if you are going to use gravel.
Consider planting something instead. Either a low sedum, or if you like something higher, try Stephanandra incisa ‘Crispa’. Once it fills in – virtually no maintenance, drought tolerant, looks nice and no weeds.
Hi Robert, thank you for the great article! What are your thoughts on using weed barrier under what will become a Zen garden? I will only have 3 or 4 bushes in a 450 sq ft area, the rest of the area will be limestone chippings and a few big rocks. I plan on keeping the weed barrier away from those bushes so the they’ll thrive. I realize that weeds may still eventually grow through the barrier and rocks but I plan on keeping up with it. Thanks in advance!
I would not use limestone chippings. I used them in some of my paths, and for the first 2 years they looked great. Now they are the perfect seedbed for weeds and my garden flowers. the air pockets are too small and stay too wet – perfect for seed germination. After some research for a Japanese dry garden I found out that what they use are 1/4 inch irregular rock. If you plant to add some markings in the sand they keep the shape for a long time.
I put down 3-4 inches of larger rocks – just junk rocks from the garden, and covered with 4 inches of the 1/4 inch. I get almost no weeds after about 4 years.
I would not use weed barrier.
Thank you for the reply and advice.
Hello, I’m new here, just stopped in to read an article about Blossom End Rot on tomatoes, which was great, and then noticed the articles on the right, and was curious if the articles on landscape fabric, and ‘DEET’ are as holistic as the BER article. I am quite pleased with this post, as well. In regards to your question, I must say there is nothing ZEN about placing garbage into the earth in an attempt (that will fail) to thwart nature. You may get a few years out of it, but eventually more soil will cover the fabric, and seeds will fall, and you’ll be pulling ‘weeds’ out of the fabric. The most zen thing you can do, in my opinion, is learn about the plants that you term ‘weeds’. Some of them are probably even edible. If you “plan on keeping up with it”, it is much easier to pull plants out of the earth than it is pulling them out of fabric and earth combined. If you’ve ever had to remove landscape fabric, it’s a mess, and the plants really don’t want to come out of it, and they end up ripping the fabric as you tug on them, at least if they are large. If you keep up with them, there’s no point in putting down the fabric in the first place. Pull all the weeds first, then set your stones, then keep up with it. Not trying to be cocky, I just can’t stand the stuff when I’m working with a client or something.
Thank you for this post, Robert, and good luck with your zenning, Glenn.
Don’t know if it is zenning – but I hate the stuff too.
Hey thanks for the reply! And you’re right, that wouldn’t be very Zen-like…
I have an old weed filter with pebbles on top and it has only lasted 14 years; In the UK we’ve had a lot of rain- moss builds up on my weed filter and decays it- I will look for a better mulch method now as the weeds and grasses are taking over the whole of the surface area where the weed filter is supposed to be working. Thanks for the advice.
Dear Robert,
I am in the process of converting my lawn (incl. some clover and other weeds) into vegetable beds and I am thinking of using sheet mulching/lasagna mulching.
Cut the lawn really short.
cover with rich compost/manure
nitrogen layer
weed barrier (cardboard)
nitrogen layer
compost, manure
cover mulch (hay,straw)
About the weed barrier, I do not want to use cardboard (ink, glue). So I thought maybe use hessian sacks. Or skip it altogether? If I do some heavy mulching. What are your thoughts?
Just another thought: all that compost, manure, etc. wouldn’t that be to much organic matter to add? like 5%?
The weed barrier in the blog is quite different than using cardboard. Cardboard will degrade over time, and in a year or two it is gone. Weed barrier lasts a long time.
The ink on paper and cardboard is made from natural chemicals and is quite safe. Not sure about the glue, but microbes will almost certainly digest it too. I would not worry about them.
I don’t know about hessian sacks. If they degrade quickly then they would work OK. In a vegetable garden you will want these gone by next spring–either they decompose, or you remove them.
Lasagna method has gotten a lot of press and it works quite well for getting rid of the grass. The problem with the method is that the newspaper and cardboard keeps water and air from the soil. Consequently, microbes die, fungus dies and dew worms either leave or die. None of this is good for the soil.
I assume by nitrogen layer you are talking about adding nitrogen fertilizer, either organic or synthetic. I would not have a nitrogen layer. You won’t be planting vegetables until next year, and by then the nitrogen is gone. Nitrogen is the one nutrient that moves very quickly in soil. It either gets washed away, or moves into the air. You can add nitrogen just before planting if you want.
If you use a couple of inches of manure and compost, and cover with straw, that will kill the existing grass. 3-4 inches total will do the job.
Soil should not have more than 5% organic matter. It might seem like you are adding a lot, but most of this manure and compost will be degraded, and the amount of remaining organic matter will be much less once you are ready to plant. Is it too much? It depends very much on how much your soil already has. Adding a couple of inches of compost each year, and harvesting vegetables should not be a problem.
Hey you ! The lasagna method is absolutely brilliant ! The air does get in and the beautiful earth is not compacted by walking on it . The worms are loving it ! My flowers and vegetables grow beautifully !
What the drawbacks of over 5% organic matter? To me it seems that too much organic matter in the soil (not on top as much) can hinder seed germination because water drains through it too fast. I suppose another issue can be nitrogen being locked up in the decaying matter.
It is a very good question. In garden soil, too much organic matter results in high levels of nutrients which could reach toxic levels. Gardeners that have used lots of manure find plants stop growing well, and when the soil is tested they find real high levels of P and K.
On the other hand most seeds started indoors are started in almost 100% peat moss. It is the not organic material that is the problem, but the decomposition of it over time.
I think this is true when we are talking about garden beds but cloth can be efficient under walking path especially if you are establishing a garden of some size. It is true that it looks terrible, with cloth sticking out underneath the mulch, you will put on top of the cloth and you will have to keep on adding mulch to cover the cloth So in most instances you are not ahead because if the cloth was replaced with cardboard you could just leave it alone but with cloth you have to keep on adding mulch
My problem is to have enough mulch, Establishing a new garden you could accept the cloth for some time and then remove it when the bindweed etc. is gone. It does save a bit of time By leaving cloth for some years you would have killed a lot of life in the soil including a lot of the weeds and you could save on weed killer
My recommendation is to view cloth as an interim solution It will save some time especially if you have a tendency to want to establish too many beds in too short a time!
A think layer of wood chips will reduce weeds just as effectively as the cloth. I doubt that the cloth kills bindweed in a path – it will just find another place to grow it’s green stems. It can travel a long distance under ground.
I built a 60′ by 100′ section of cedar raised beds on my farm. The piece of ground I put them on was solid bindweed. Being organic minded didn’t want to spray it 1st. I covered the ground with this fabric 1st http://obcnw.com/groundcovercloth4x300.aspx. Then built the beds on top. I got zero bindweed in my beds or through the fabric. The fabric type makes a huge difference in my experience, The stuff sold in the landscape trade is not the same as the stuff sold in the nursery trade.