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
Interesting article, I will chime in as a professional landscaper there are many times when the fabric is NEEDED. ie: under gravel or river rock, where there is lawn and it’s whacked down to dirt then mulch or Rick is installed, under a walkway or patio, in commercial applications where they do not want to plant anything just mulch, at the bottom of a raised bed on a patio. In the garden I use it to surpress the amount of weeding but leave u covered areas or cut around established plants, hedges or shrubs to allow for watering. I’ve had great success with it but it is time consuming to install correctly. Yes my associate prefers to just weed and use heave mulch but he doesn’t have the patience to install fabric well. Cheers!
Let me take your first example “under gravel or river rock” – it is not needed here. A thicker layer of rock is all you need. I have never put it under rock.
It only suppresses weeds for a few years – then it is a weed trap. Visit your old sites to see how well it is working.
I just setup raised bed sip containers and placed weed barrier over the corrugated tubes to keep the soil from getting into the corrugated tubes that maintain the water. Seems like I am defeating the purpose of the wicking effect if the weed barrier does not pass water. Removing the weed barrier, thanks for the post.
I found you have quite well knowledge about weed membrane, could you please recommend any trusted fabric in UK. However, many other suggests me Lawnsacpe.org. Could you review this platform for me.
Don’t use any.
Hi Robert, I have a garden area on my friends property next to some very tall trees. The garden started out ok but the roots from the trees quickly took over my garden. I was thinking of doing raised beds but it is obvious that the tree roots will still enter the bed. Any suggestions to create a barrier for the tree roots?
Landscape fabric under a raised bed will slow them down, but not stop them. A solid bottom with no cracks will work, but putting a tall raised bed on tree roots harms the tree.
Is it safe to use weed blocking fabric to cover my fig trees, or will there be chemical run off that might contaminate the figs we eat?
I have used tar paper to cover and protect fig trees from New York winters, but I’ve heard tar paper may have unsafe chemical run off that could contaminate the fruit.
Thank you in advance!
Landscape fabric should be safe.
Hi Robert, I recently purchased a garden raised bed. Unfortunately i have to place it on the concrete ground. Do you have any suggestions how to lining the bottom instead of using pvc weedmat or landscape cloth? Thank you!
Don’t line it, or use landscape cloth.
Truth! I have experimented with landscape cloth of various types and have learned that they don’t work. I just pulled up the fabric I placed this past spring in the walkways around my raised garden beds. In just one season, the fabric began to photo-degrade, and in some places weeds found enough organic matter to begin growing. I hate that this stuff is petroleum-based and will end up as yet another source of plastic pollution. Next year, I’ll go with layered cardboard with a wood-chip mulch (the latter for aesthetic reasons since I have neighbors). Thank you for your straight-forward honesty about landscape fabrics. We need to move beyond that idea.
Dont WASTE your money on weed cloth. There is a MUCH better FREE alternative.
CARDBOARD. Lay it out and soak it with water. I use long screws to hold corners in place. Walk around on it to form to the ground while wet. Three years later still working. Best part is, it’s biodegradable. Does not work well on slopes or hills. You can add fabric on top to help hold mulch in place.
Three years ago I renovated a garden covered almost entirely in brambles, raspberry canes, bindweed and nettles, with a few stalwart shrubs that had not yet been smothered and killed. Digging out all the weed roots seemed impossible. The solution was a thick layer of cardboard covered in 4 inches of weed free compost mixed with a little grit. It worked like a dream.
Plants grown from seed were potted up and grown to a decent size before planted into the mulch. The first summer they had no competition from the buried weeds. The second summer some emerged and were easily pulled out – particularly the brambles and nettles. The raspberries are now where I want them, except for a few that still emerge in odd places. The bindweed was the most persistent, but there is a lot less than originally.
I also tried weed fabric and mulch on one area – less successfully. The weed shoots emerged after a year, but were harder to pull out.
Forgot to say that you must remove any parcel tape or cello tape from the cardboard first – if you forget you will be pulling out emerging strips for years to come.
Hi! *phew. I just read through all of the comments, and I very much realize that this is an old post; hoping you still monitor it. I’m looking for something to only use for 2-3 years before pulling it up again; we aren’t planting anything in it, and will be just temporarily landscaping over it to wait it out. We’re trying to smother/suffocate the American Trumpet Vine, and we’ve hemmed the roots in by digging 3′ trenches and inserting sheet metal so it doesn’t grow past our mulch. We were hoping to use carpet and then 4″ of mulch over it, but lost our used carpet source. We need something that at least lets a bit of water in, as we’re on a bit of a slope and don’t want to send a waterfall of water to the neighbour’s yard. Our chief hope is to kill the trumpet vine roots – we will wake up the soil after pulling up the weed suppressant if we need to after only a few years. My question: do you think a good quality landscape cloth (I’ve heard trumpet vine shoots grow through cardboard) would keep shoots from growing through them to reach sunlight? Again, we’re only looking for a temporary fix. We can’t dig all the roots up (as is recommended), as they’ve gone underneath our poured concrete patio. We just bought the house – the last owners planted the dreaded think, which has now spread 20′ in all directions as well as to the neighbours yard. Thanks for your advice!
My question is similar. I intended to use landscape fabric to kill off a mostly weed lawn, infiltrated by a ground cover (periwinkle). I thought landscape fabric would be preferable to black plastic, allowing the earthworms and microbes to continue to live in the soil. I currently have blue tarps down, but they don’t attract the heat of the sun as black landscape cloth would do. Very reluctant to use herbicide to kill the grass, even if it is a relatively small area.
I’ve unfortunately put this landscape fabric down last summer. All was good until this spring. Now grass is coming through the fabric and bark mulch. I live close to a ravine which is protected and we as home owners are not aloud to use poisons In the area. What else do you suggest?
wood chip mulch.
hello, thank you for the tips, in areas where i don’t want anything to ever grown back, will cardboard/newspaper work with 3-6 inches of mulch on top? thank you in advance!
yes
My husband bought tons of very heavy duty landscape fabric about 10 years ago. Even before reading all the downsides of with this junk, I’ve been (sneaking) ripping much of it out as I work around the yard (please don’t tell him :x). It’s impossible to weed once the weed’s roots make their way through and below it. It’s impossible to dig through. The mulch slides all over and exposes it. Squirrels and moles are determined large areas must be exposed. As your plants become larger and take up more of the original planting area, it’s impossible to work compost around the bases. The areas where I’ve removed it are much easier to weed rather than just snapping them off the fabric surface, leaving the roots underneath. Need I say more?
I strongly discourage the use of any landscaping fabric.