Landscape fabric

Landscape fabric versus newspaper

[photo: My front walk bed: no worries, not landscape fabric either!)

I used to LOVE the idea of using landscape fabric under most everything, especially ornamental flower beds, but also under perennial vegetable and fruit plantings. I thought it especially good for raspberries and strawberries. But the love affair is slowly eroding. Organic Gardening magazine wrote a short article suggesting that landscape fabric, while it does allow the transfer of water and some water-soluble nutrients, blocks the transfer of organic matter or humus to the root zone. Plants, especially perennials, need to have a constant and steady supply of organic matter to make up for what is taken up or broken down. So, soil that has been under landscape fabric for years is soil that gets depleted.

Another problem is when you try to divide perennials or weed perennial beds were the roots have snaked in and out of the landscape fabric. A nightmare! It requires quite a bit of muscle to deal with this problem, though the landscape fabric may have helpfully suppressed weeds for a year or two.

A third problem is that voles and moles love landscape fabric, they even shred it to line their nests! Of course, moles and voles love to live under mulched areas too….

There are a few areas where I would still use landscape fabric, for example, in paths that I cover heavily with mulch and where perennial weeds are not a big problem. I might use it for one season in veggie or annual beds, where the soil has recently been enriched- this suppresses weeds and some diseases. I guess what I will use more in the future is thick, wet newspaper under mulch and old fashioned elbow grease to pull out them thar weeds!