Although I am pretty adept at gardening, I have to admit that I have made more than my fair share of dumb gardening mistakes. After 15 years at Hanbury House, that list of mistakes has grown pretty long. If someone was to ask me to name the number one worst thing I did on that list, it would have to be when I used black landscape fabric. I used it in the front yard beds near the porch, under the gravel pathway, and under the raised beds in the veggie garden. I sure wish I go back and talk some sense into my younger self, and tell her “You will still be regretting this 15 years from now.” And boy do I do regret it! Each spring I tear out more tiny portions of the stuff as I change areas, divide plants, or try to weed the pathway.

Back in 1997, I read in a popular home and garden magazine, an article singing the praises of landscape fabric for blocking weeds, but still allowing moisture and air to permeate to plant roots, unlike the black plastic stuff that looks like thick trash bag material often used as a weed barrier too. Landscape fabric was supposedly easy to cut little holes to pop plants into and then just cover over the rest over with mulch. It lived up to the hype in the short run, but after a couple years, it turned into a long term headache. Bermuda grass grows under it and up through the holes. All sorts of tenacious things find their way through it, like oxalis, goji, and blackberry roots. Once something grows through it, getting rid of it is practically impossible, short of resorting to using evil herbicides or tearing out large sections of the fabric to manually dig out the offending plant. Cutting nice neat holes for new plants is difficult once the fabric is secured in place. It also impairs the diameter growth of desirable perennials that sure would have been nice to divide. Basically, in my opinion, landscape fabric sucks! Needless to say, I don’t subscribe to that home and garden magazine anymore, and I am a initially skeptical of garden products being featured in pristine gardens by publications until I have heard from actual dirt under their finger nails gardeners endorsing it.

In my opinion, the best and cheapest weed barrier is newspaper and mulch. I like to use a thick layer of newspaper, soak it with water and then cover with any biodegradable mulch. Earth worms flock to it, it eventually disappears into the soil, its easy to get, easy to custom cut and fit, and it is very cheap or even free. I won’t be using landscape fabric again.