Ever heard of the term? Assuming that most of us haven’t, let’s give you the dictionary meaning so as to save the time you might spend finding it. Landscape fabric is an artificial fabric which is normally water-permeable and is usually spread underneath paths or organic matter with the purpose of preventing weed invasion.
Undoubtedly, landscape fabric, often called geotextiles, helps in making gardening experience a simple and easy one. You could spread it on a new or already existent garden bed and it would serve as a great help in repressing unwanted plants and letting water and air to reach the earth beneath. Basically, this synthetic fabric is a composed of sheets of tightly woven polypropylene which are flexible and porous. It is one of the best creations of the world for the people who hate pulling weeds but love gardening. Apart from that, these fabrics help in maintaining moderate soil temperatures, allowing for earlier flower blooming in spring. Landscape fabrics also come in handy in avoiding soil erosion.
Where the landscape fabric turns your formerly messy, weedy garden into a neat, clean and properly designed one, it also has some drawbacks. Landscape garden doesn’t help the soil in terms of organic material. It is not recommended for vegetable gardens or other gardens which require a high amount of digging as the fabric would be covering the soil. Also, this fabric is particularly designed to be photodegradable which would result in you having to change the fabric within five years and let me reassure you, it is not a piece of cake. Apart from that, seeds or other dirt might end up in the ground cover which means you will still have to clean up. Not only will this, but weeds themselves eventually grow on top of the fabric, which would add difficulty to the already tough task of their removal. The aesthetic quality of landscape fabrics is very low.
So the bottom line is that landscape fabrics are not a permanent weed control solution and you would have to be ever vigilant. They could be a good solution for ornamental landscapes but just an average solution for permanent ones. As in these types of landscapes you would probably have to incur very high maintenance cost as you would have to take care of the appearance, weed control and soil health.
Therefore, all you need to do is to keep yourself updated and aware. You should opt for the weed barrier that best fits your requirements. Weeds barriers other than landscape fabric are cedar chips, plastic sheets, drain field fabric, mulch, black plastic and spraying herbicide are some of the alternative solutions available. So have fun with your gardening experience while preventing weeds from destroying the beauty of your ornamental or permanent garden.
