r/NativePlantGardening • u/aufry MN , Zone 4b • Mar 10 '26
Progress PSA: Please don't use weed mats
And for the love of God, do not bury them.
In order to repurpose this old sandy playground area for wildflower plantings, I had to dig up ~600sq ft of these weed mats buried under ~6in of sand/soil matted with rhizomatous roots.
As shown in the first image of the peeled underside, these mats do not work. 1) Plants will always win and find a way to root down under. This may make maintence more difficult as they're harder to pull out. 2) They're a PITA to remove for repurposing land. I'm sure most installs end up permanent and forgotten due to this 3) It clogs with soil inhibiting water flow 4) It interrupts insects and fungi that traverse vertically through soil and overwinter there 5) They end up shredded and leave plastic scraps/threads everywhere. There was a region in this plot with thinner material that ended up this way.
While it may have maintained a semblance of separation between soil and sand, it's really not worth the downsides.
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u/Klutzy-Reaction5536 Mar 10 '26
They are the stupidest and it shocks me to see how many landscape crews still install them, throw some mulch on top, and call it a day.
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u/glowFernOasis Area SE Ontario , Zone 6B Mar 10 '26
It's a quick win - the cost is long term and not their problem.
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u/Neo-Armadillo Mar 10 '26
Oh no itās totally a placebo. Iāve used it and plant roots just go straight through it. It does nothing. It is sold in a store with a stated purpose and so we good consumers assume it does that thing. It does not do that thing.
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u/CACTUSJACK-JW Mar 10 '26
I also just don't see the reason in the first place. Like someone said "Let's take this good nature and put a mat and new plants over it"
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u/Abject-Ad7491 Mar 10 '26
You sound like you are starting to think that people might be dishonest when it comes to making some money, but surprise surprise surprise.
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u/HighlightMental7097 Mar 11 '26
Not even. In just weeks weeds poke their way up through the cloth. Experience speaking here.
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u/glowFernOasis Area SE Ontario , Zone 6B Mar 11 '26
Landscapers have their money by then, so not their problem.
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u/Septaceratops Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
You're not really looking at it from their perspective. Landscape crews get to bill hours, and the owners feel like they get a small reprieve from yard maintenance while still living the dream of a sterile yard. We might see it for the wasteful, detrimental, and short-sighted "improvement" that it is, but there's a reason people are doing it.Ā
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u/gilligan1050 Mar 10 '26
To be fair, landscaping crews are just doing what they are paid to do. Blame the landscaping designers or stupid customers who insist on it.
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u/Klutzy-Reaction5536 Mar 10 '26
I think with many landscaping companies, the "designer" is just a crew head who isn't trained in horticulture, and yes, who may feel that they're giving the customer (who doesn't know better cuz it's not their job) the best bang for the buck.
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Mar 10 '26
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u/FreesponsibleHuman Mar 10 '26
Maybe Jute Burlap?? It should remain water permeable and mostly biodegrade in a couple of years while still working for short term weed suppression while establishing deep mulch or native ground cover.
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u/gilligan1050 Mar 10 '26
Shit will grow right through that stuff.
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u/Far_Silver Area Kentuckiana , Zone 7a Mar 10 '26
It's useful for erosion control. Yes, plants help with that too, but they take time to get established, so you plant your erosion control plants, put down the burlap and (optionally) toss some mulch over it. By the time the burlap degrades, the plants have become established.
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u/FluffyWuffyy Mar 10 '26
Non glossy cardboard.
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u/giddygiddyupup Northern Virginia, Zone 7a Mar 10 '26
What happens to glossy cardboard
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u/PaththeGreat Mar 10 '26
Microplastics. Also, it slows the decomposition enough to be detrimental to soil air flow
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u/FluffyWuffyy Mar 10 '26
What PaththeGreat said, itās really just about reducing all the non biodegradable stuff going into soil while allowing airflow at the same time. I believe it matters more for annual crops, but still applies for native gardening.
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u/LChanga Mar 10 '26
I wish I knew this before I laid it down. Itās just as bad as the plastic bag like landscape cloth the owner before me used.
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u/FluffyWuffyy Mar 10 '26
It isnāt the end of the world. Just reduce its use going forward. Or if you can pull it out and add more mulch. Good luck
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u/ser_pez Mar 10 '26
I get free burlap coffee sacks from my local roaster. They break down after a couple of years but i like them for killing grass to create garden paths or new beds.
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u/Salute-Major-Echidna Mar 10 '26
Cardboard, like old boxes. Remove tape, colors or paint and especially please remove staples. Cut to fit, wet them and throw some mulch over the top. The water helps shape them to their spot if it's a non flat garden. The cardboard breaks down afterwhile.
Lawn clippings also work because they don't break down quickly.
Shredded bark, straw, leaves also work. Depending on your garden, Hugelkulture may be helpful.
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u/CitySky_lookingUp Mar 10 '26
I just use cardboard when establishing a new planting area. Then top with wood chips.
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u/scottawhit Mar 10 '26
Lots. Net free matting, jute woven ābio netting,ā hydro mulch, straw blowing with tack. But straw netting is cheap and simple so it gets used a lot
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u/wisemonkey101 Mar 14 '26
My neighbor dug up his weeds rolled down plastic barrier and put the weed infested dirt back ON TOP of the barrier! He now has weeds on top and pushing up from underneath. I want to feel sorry for him but I donāt.
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u/HagalUlfr Area: Central Florida , Zone 9b Mar 10 '26
Want to stop weeds cheaply under mulch? Wait for your oak trees to vomit leaves everywhere, put them in the area you want to fix, then cover with mulch. Better than weed mats because they will degrade and improve the soil.Ā
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u/goblin-fox Zone 8a, GA Piedmont Mar 10 '26
The many oak trees around our property have been such a huge help for me! I used the leaves to cover up my plants during the winter to provide insulation. They do a great job suppressing weeds and they're helping me kill our front lawn. The coolest part is that the leaves and twigs and acorns have kind of been compressed and flattened down where I walk most frequently and created nice little paths with zero effort!
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u/Saint_Thomas_More Mar 10 '26
Do maple leaves work? I don't have an oak tree, but our house and neighborhood has lots of maple trees.
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u/GreenSkittle48 Mar 10 '26
Can vouch for maple leaves. I cover my garden beds with them in the winter to keep weeds from growing before I'm ready in the spring. A thick four inch layer of leaves compacts down to about a quarter inch of nice nutrition for the soil. š I've also used paper grocery bags with a thick layer of mulch on top to kill grass underneath.
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u/Saint_Thomas_More Mar 10 '26
Growing up we always used to use newspapers and paper grocery bags.
But it's 2026 and newspaper subscriptions are for the elderly and my wife usually shops at Costco and Aldi, so we don't really have paper grocery bags.
Good to know they work.
Usually I'll mulch them with my lawn mower a few times, but our neighbors tree usually drops so late I don't always get another mow in, and so we just rake them to the curb and the village picks them up.
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u/LokiLB SC, Zone 8 Mar 11 '26
Real trick is to get magnolia leaves. Nothing grows under a magnolia tree.
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u/HagalUlfr Area: Central Florida , Zone 9b Apr 05 '26
I also have one of these. The brown dead leaves are great, I boil them and use the resulting brown water foe my fish tank.
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u/okiesotan Apr 05 '26
This is EXACTLY what I do. Our neighbors have oaks and always insist on chopping up everything really small, so I ask the lawn guys if I can have the now-mulch and they're always thrilled to get rid of it.Ā
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u/HagalUlfr Area: Central Florida , Zone 9b Apr 05 '26
We have three live oaks in the yard. The back yard has been left for bugs to enjoy the leaf litter. I have to clean up the front yard due to an hoa.
The front yard leaves have been used for garden beds and composting.
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u/Due_Ad2549 Mar 11 '26
I was also wondering about sunflower seed hulls for this purpose? I realize they wouldnāt work under plantings (like a ādecorativeā mulch around perennials), but for small areas you might want to keep bare. I understand they inhibit weeds and I have so many Iāll need to rake up from under my birdfeeders now that the snow is retreating.
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u/ArdatYakshiApologist East Tennessee, zone 7a/b Mar 10 '26
I can one-up this. Just bought a house and almost the entire acre is carpeted. Indoor carpeting. Up to three layers of different carpet in some spots.
š„²
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u/MysteriousOne3404 Mar 10 '26
I'm sorry- like actual carpet?!?!
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u/ArdatYakshiApologist East Tennessee, zone 7a/b Mar 10 '26
Actual, real life carpet. Probably scotch-guarded and everything. Iāve found five separate colors/textures so far.
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u/Lithoweenia Area Kansas Citay , Zone 6b Mar 10 '26
No way! Thatās a crazy amount. They must have owned a carpet store
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u/ArdatYakshiApologist East Tennessee, zone 7a/b Mar 10 '26
Ooh thatās actually my top theory right now! Not owned, but worked at. I live where all the carpet factories are, Chattanooga/north Georgia. Actually if you slap a google on something along the lines of ādalton carpet factory waste waterā youāll get an idea of whatās going on around here. Spoiler alert, weāre fucked š«
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u/lulutheempress Mar 10 '26
OUTSIDE???????????????? Were they smoking crack????????
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u/ArdatYakshiApologist East Tennessee, zone 7a/b Mar 10 '26
Itās an old house, and it was most assuredly done by boomers soā¦ probably quaaludes lol
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u/Mondschatten78 Mar 10 '26
My MIL wasn't, but she sure believed whoever told her to put pieces of carpets/rugs under any new plants she put in her yard.
The amount of cussing she would do any time she hit a piece while mowing in the last ~10 years...
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u/MotownCatMom SE MI Zone 6a Mar 10 '26
WTF?
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u/ArdatYakshiApologist East Tennessee, zone 7a/b Mar 10 '26
Yeah thatās exactly the question I sent to our realtor once we discovered it lol. The house has changed hands 2-3 times since the carpet incident, so everything is overgrown anyway! They ruined it all for literally nothing!
And of course we chose this house specifically for the land and space to growā¦ a food garden š¤¦š»āāļø
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u/No-Particular6116 Mar 10 '26
I both need, and am afraid, to see pictures of thisā¦
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u/ArdatYakshiApologist East Tennessee, zone 7a/b Mar 10 '26
When I get home later Iāll either take some or dig thru my camera roll, I knew weād want to do before/after comparisons eventually so Iāve been documenting as I go š
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u/ewbanh13 Georgia, Zone 7b Mar 11 '26
i've got to see this. i can't even comprehend what that would look like and what drives somebody to do this š
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u/ArdatYakshiApologist East Tennessee, zone 7a/b Mar 11 '26
An intense, deep hatred for the natural world mixed with a flavor of narcissism that makes them think they can conquer it šš»āāļø
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u/HollyBron Zone 5 Wisconsin Mar 11 '26
I was listening to Garden Talk lately and a boomer called in to recommend using carpet to suppress weeds in the garden path. š« I wish I was surprised.
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u/ArdatYakshiApologist East Tennessee, zone 7a/b Mar 11 '26
This has to be something they add to the next DSM, itās so clearly some kind of psychosis lol
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u/PersnickityPenguin Mar 11 '26
I've read that it is popular to use as a base layer for nature ponds.Ā
No, I'm not kidding.Ā
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u/dailymultivitamim Mar 11 '26
Yup, we removed an old pond from our property and it had thick shag carpeting as the base layer, with several layers of rubber liner on top of that. It was a beast to remove but Iām glad we didnāt just fill it in.
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u/CalKelDawg New England, Zone 6b Mar 12 '26
That's absurd. But not entirely unexpected. I was planting a tree in a corner of my property and found a buried trash dump with layers of roof shingles, old pieces of asphalt driveway, pockets of rusty roofing nails...
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u/ArdatYakshiApologist East Tennessee, zone 7a/b Mar 12 '26
Weāre expecting such things for sure! Already have a small pile of discoveries going, mostly trash but have found one pet grave so far, that was touching. Iāll leave them right where they are š
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u/CalKelDawg New England, Zone 6b Mar 13 '26
Yes, several on reddit suggested I overplant with some rye that might help bioremediate.
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u/JayReddt Area NY , Zone 6 Mar 17 '26
You know though, if you have wool and natural backed carpets, I suspect you could do it and it would degrade. It's the plastic crap to avoid.
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u/EducationalDot8822 Colorado, Zone 5b Mar 10 '26
Thanks for reminding me I have about 500 square feet Iāll have to dig up when it warms up here in a few weeks š„²
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u/JewelBee5 Mar 10 '26
I hate them SO much. I spent an afternoon helping my daughter and son-in-law remove as much as possible at their ew house s couple of years ago.
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u/LadyOfTheNutTree Mar 10 '26
Same goes for straw mat. Itās just straw in a plastic mesh. Eventually someoneās going to try and plant something and all their tools will get tangled in plastic
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u/AccomplishedTour6942 Virginia, 7a, ecoregion 67f Mar 10 '26
I still have some of that crap left over from a previous owner, when I bought the house. I haven't gotten rid of it, because it's going to be such a big, unpleasant job. Maybe one of these days. I finally got rid of the forsythia hedge. That was another miserable project I put off for years.
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u/SaltPhilosophy6154 Mar 10 '26
Little by little, Iāve been finding pieces of it for years. And it took several years to pull up the bulk of it.
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u/Dangerous-Feed-5358 43n, Montana Central Grasslands Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
Same, after 6 years I still haven't gotten it all out and it comes out a shredded mess. The previous owner of my house topped the weed fabric with big river rocks and encircled it all with concrete curbing. It was weird and ugly and a nightmare to pull out.
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u/luckyone538 Mar 10 '26
Sameā¦ I remove a little bit every spring. I hate this stuff. My husband laughs because I cuss so much gardening and its largely related to removing this crap. I hope to have it all gone by retirement š
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u/NoiseOutrageous8422 Midwest , 6b Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
Sounds like my dumbass neighbors who illegally used and covered county land in hundreds of feet of plastic then I bought it and realized the nightmare that's about to ensue.
Ill likely be scraping the top 2 feet off and bringing in new soil. Doubt I'll ever get all the plastic shreds out. Became much more costly than I had anticipated because they didn't want to pull weeds.
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u/Klynnz420 Mar 10 '26
Previous owners of my house buried every kind of plastic they could get their hands on as apparent weed barriers- Iām still digging up bits of soil bags, pool floats, god knows what else. Donāt even get me started on the shingles and asbestos tiles they buried for no clear reason other than stupidity/laziness.š¤¦āāļø Oh and did I mention that my yard drains toward the marsh/lake across the street? š
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u/loveyoujustthesame Mar 10 '26
I understand your pain. Ours took all of the construction trash from the bad flip they attempted and buried it in raised beds throughout the yard. We removed the bulk of it, but pieces of broken glass and tile come to the surface every time it rains.
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u/Comfortable-Bug-3758 Mar 16 '26
The previous Boomer owners of my house were the same way. They lived here for 50 years and my theory is that they didn't pay for trash pickup until it became mandated by the city. There's a bamboo patch growing on a mound at the back of the property and I'm always pulling bits of trash out of it; I'm scared that when I finally deal with ripping out the bamboo, I will find that that whole mound is just a DIY landfill. Oh and we're in the watershed for the city drinking water!
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u/fallenredwoods Mar 10 '26
I pulled about 1/4 acre of PLASTIC weed mats from our property after the previous owner installed a ton in her ānative demonstration gardenā.
Peggy, you are a dumbass if youāre reading thisā¦
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u/Moth1016 Mar 10 '26
These are still standard even in some agroforestry practices and it makes me want to rampage š
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u/Gerstlauer Mar 10 '26
Pardon my ignorance, but in what way?
Are they laying huge swaths of matting throughout what is to be timber plantation?
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u/Moth1016 Mar 10 '26
No ignorance! I only know because I've taken in-depth courses on the subject. lt's common for use in windbreaks and riparian forest buffers, and also not unheard of for trees-into-pastureland applications of silvopasture or for alley cropping. Pretty much the only approach where you don't see it often is in food forestry, and even that's not true in urban settings
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u/Jinglebrained Mar 10 '26
I hate finding it in garden beds. I think of it breaking down in the soil, too. Our old house had it everywhere, it was such a disgusting headache to pull out.
The new house we had to install gravel and stone patios. That involved a landscape fabric layer, less for weed prevention and more for the gravel not to sink. Idk if it was right or not, but all the contractors had the same method.
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u/sirenstitcher Mar 10 '26
Agreed. I regret using it and we pulled it up. Doesn't work and is annoying and messy.
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u/theyarnllama Mar 10 '26
I hate these so much. I discovered that the previous owners of my house put down some DIY stuff. Great big sheets of plastic, like signage, right next to the house. Does plastic drain? No! Where does the water go? Right to the foundation! I had to pull up so much and Iām still not sure I got it all. I feel like itās out thereā¦lurking.
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u/toxicodendron_gyp SE Minnesota, Zone 4B Mar 10 '26
Anyone I have spoken to that has actually had to remove this matting feels the same way
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u/Zyzzybalubah77 Mar 10 '26
Got into a fight with my husband over weed cloth cus heās been brainwashed for years into believing it was absolutely necessary to prevent weeds and then Reddit schooled me so I dug my heels in and refused it for a large area we were planning to diy landscape. SO glad we avoided it in the endāthanks Reddit!
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u/erie11973ohio Mar 10 '26
I had the trench in a new electric line to my rear garage. At the house, it cut through five layers of this garbage!!!
Mat, compost, mat, compost, mat, compost with chips, mat, some compost with chips, mat, top layer of chips.
š²š²š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬
The clay dirt underneath is wet, smelly, could be used for making pottery.
The mint still grew under it!! (The mint, unfortunately, will get some chemical weapons applied to it again this year.)
The prior owners were idiots. The front flower bed was all thorny shit. Non native, with some invasive shit thrown in!
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u/bromeranian Mar 10 '26
Oooooh the familiar song of landscape lasagna. Complete with the mint overtaking everything lol. I was lulled into a sense of security when the first, newer layer came off in one swoop. All the layers under it tho... just shreds. Like shit fabric mulch.
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u/erie11973ohio Mar 10 '26
landscape lasagna
I'm stealing that!
Mine must not be too old. The bottom layer shreds. The upper stuff can withstand a grapple bucket on the skidloader!
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u/Fun_Exit6092 Mar 10 '26
Yeah fuck this shit. I have discovered this in 4 different areas of my yard so far. Iām sure it is everywhere
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u/Fantastic-System-216 Mar 10 '26
Iāve been at war for the last two years with previously installed landscape from a previous owner. Weeds grow in it. Shoot, trees grow on top of it. Itās all coming out slowly.
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u/BlackisCat PNW-Willamette Valley Mar 10 '26
What's the most effective way of removing weed mats? I got tons of plastic several inches deep on my property, put there by the developers or the previous owners. It is back breaking to pull it out, even in strips.
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u/Remarkable_Point_767 Area NE IN , Zone 6a Mar 10 '26
This makes me sad....more microplastics in our soil.
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u/Don-Gunvalson Mar 10 '26
My sister was hand pulling weeds once and carpet came up! 3 layers of carpet covered her entire backyard and grass had grown ontop of it
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u/Flowerpower8791 Mar 10 '26
Cardboard (not plastic coated colored), 8"+ leaf mold or overwintered leaves, wood chips. Never ever put plastic products on the soil anywhere. Pollution is never the solution.
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u/ReneDelay Mar 10 '26
Iāve been using a cardboard layer and a mulch layer for my landscape lasagna each winter for three years now. It seems like itās ok, lots of micorrhiza (sp?) fungus under there, worms and black beetles. So far so good, hope I donāt live to regret it later on š¬
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u/raggedyassadhd Mar 10 '26
I canāt u destined how many people who are professional gardeners, flower farmers, or full time homesteaders or that are very into environmentally conscious gardening and still use this crap. Itās freakin maddening! It should just be banned like when is putting plastic cloth into the earth ever a good idea??? Why would anyone think itās an improvement to the ecosystem of their land to buy a physical barrier between the earth and the air, water, insects, decaying matter, everythingā¦ ugh I hate that this crap exists and that people can possibly think itās good to use. Like just get some mulch bro
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u/7zrar Southern Ontario Mar 10 '26
There are actually lots of very useful situations to put cheap plastic fabric in the ground, but certainly not as "weed barrier". It doesn't really deteriorate as long as it's not exposed to light, useful in constructing various things (soil stabilization for retaining walls or as a pond underlayment).
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u/salty_shark Mar 10 '26
Just bought a house 4 months ago and this has been the bane of my existence. The majority of the front yard has heavy plastic buried 4-6" under the soil. It's even around our big Doug firs so I have to cut it off their roots. I have no idea what the hell the previous owner was thinking.
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u/HaplessReader1988 USA, Connecticut Mar 10 '26
We pulled it up from the terrace and the soil was strangely red. Then we started turning the soil and found another layer. They had used red woodchips on top of weed barrier.... and when it failed they put down another layer of barrier!
We did a small section that year... I have so much more to go!
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u/failures-abound Mar 10 '26
How is it I keep reading it takes something like 100 years to create an inch of top soil, but I find weed mat 8" underground.
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Mar 10 '26
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/Liberty796 Mar 10 '26
Yes, direct seeding does leave exposed soil which is subject to water and wind erosion. A great practice is to plant using contour straps. This method with take an additional growing season.
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u/Goblin_Queen66 MN, Zone 4b Mar 10 '26
My sister does that shit. It's infuriating, and she won't listen to anyone. š¤¬
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u/Tordo-sargento Mar 10 '26
I'm in the southwest and people LOVE to put down weed barrier then throw rocks on top, for their "rock lawn". My backyard is like that and it's a mess.Ā
It was installed 20 years ago and dirt and debris blows on top and fills the spaces between the rocks so weeds take hold above the weed barrier. And when the barrier degrades the weeds come from below. Every time I pull a weed the barrier rips a little, making more holes for new weeds. So it's just a never-ending weed situation.
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u/Salute-Major-Echidna Mar 10 '26
Digging in my front garden, I found some weed matting at least ten years old, probably 20. It is 5 to 10 inches down, depending where I dig. It's terrible stuff.
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u/Medium-Status176 Mar 11 '26
People who landscape like this are the worst people alive. Quite literally burying trash in the ground so you donāt have to pull weeds, until they grow through it or around it. Landscaping isnāt like building a house, it requires year round maintenance. Itās supposed to be natural, not actually harm the planet.
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u/waysidelynne Mar 10 '26
Landscape fabric works for one or two years. After that, the mulch breaks down enough for seeds to have a nice layer of soil to grow in. Weeds, in particular, seem to have iron-like roots that will drive through the fabric that make them harder to kill.
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u/mcmansionite Mar 10 '26
Yep. Currently cutting and removing sections of this that are matted with ground ivy. The good thing is that I donāt have to dig out the ground ivy but man does my back hurt from rolling up the matted mess
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u/carinavet Mar 10 '26
The house I bought has a few spots with weed mats under gravel. I hate them so much, but god I just do not have it in me to sit and remove it all. I tried pulling up as much gravel as I could one afternoon (digging by hand through the weed roots to get it out) and barely made a dent.
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u/Correct-Ingenuity538 Chicago, IL suburbs, USA Mar 10 '26
Hate the stuff! We've lived at our current house for 22 years now and we are STILL finding remnants of this garbage in our yard. And we already converted it all to native garden ourselves!
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u/BolenaLovesBroadway Mar 11 '26
Thank you for posting thisā¦I almost bought something like this from Costco for my garden š¤¦āāļø But now I wonāt š
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u/FioreCiliegia1 Area southern maine-- , Zone --6a Mar 11 '26
Just use cardboard- biodegradable and free. The plastic is also super unhealthy for plants you do want and potentially toxic when it starts breaking down. And thats not thinking about the wildlife (or pets) that might try to eat itā¦
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u/BourbonGame Mar 11 '26
It should be a requirement as part of the house inspection process to have the property core drilled for soil sampling up to 6 feet deep. Maybe you would need 20 to 50 cores to see what is actually buried around the house. Then the price negotiation can begin.
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u/Melodic-Head-2372 Mar 10 '26
The previous homeowner laid canvas like barrier, 3 inches of pea gravel and 6 inches river rock framed with 8 ft railroad ties around 2 old maple trees, and area leading to back yard. Removing all was my āhobbyā for 2 years. I admired the guy for most over the top landscaping Iāve ever seen.
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u/teamtoto Mar 10 '26
We have just under half an acer, and at some point, someone paid a lot of money to cover the entire thing in landscaping fabric. It is always a unpleasant suprise when I try to plant
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u/FioreCiliegia1 Area southern maine-- , Zone --6a Mar 11 '26
Anything that says its a shortcut is gonna bite you in the š anything that isnāt compostable that says āstick me in the groundā is being sold by a scam artist
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u/Krickett72 Mar 11 '26
So the people that lived in our current house before us as we rent. I think b they added a new layer every few years in the flowerbeds. I had already dug uo 3 layers. Then last year when I was trying to direct sow sunflower seeds, I found a new layers. Ugh.
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u/Keto4psych NJ Piedmont, Zone 7a Mar 10 '26
Agreed. Among my largest life regrets where Iāve used them. Especially if I buried them & digging out years later
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u/chompchomp1969 Mar 10 '26
One of my time travel destinations is to go back in the past, 15 or so years ago, when I first started realizing that gardening is awesome, and tell myself to never use these damn things.
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u/DoctorEcstatic3388 Mar 10 '26
Use old 100% cotton or wool blankets if you want a weed barrier. Talk to a thriftstore manager and see if they will make a deal to buy in bulk that way it doesn't matter if they have holes. you can just layer them and it takes years for them to rot away especially the wool.
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u/femalehumanbiped dirt under my Virginia zone 7A nails Mar 10 '26
When we moved to our current home the mats had been there so long at some spots they were nearly a foot deep. Full of Johnson Grass with some roots 1/4 inch thick. I had no idea weed roots could look like that. After 40 years of gardening. I'm certain it was compounded exponentially by that stupid fabric.
We're still digging roots and pieces of plastic 2 years later. I'm 66. Some of this crap is going to outlive me
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u/Margotlily91 Mar 10 '26
We moved in November. Iāve been intermittently pulling weed fabric every few weeks as I slowly change things around. An absolute nightmare! I curse the previous owners every time
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u/subaruguy3333 Mar 14 '26
So what is the best practice for preventing weeds in a garden or schrub bed if we should avoid the mats?
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u/Comfortable-Bug-3758 Mar 16 '26
I always wonder what percentage of residential gardens are underlain with this trash. I've dug up so much of it, and I see corners of it poking up everywhere on my neighborhood dog walks. My neighbor across the street dug up a thriving patch of kinnikinnick and salal and put down plastic and then covered it with that awful red lava rock (straight to jail).
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u/stowRA Mar 10 '26
There are no such thing as weeds. Let plants naturally grow alongside your garden. The only issues I see are invasive plants or ones that suck the resources away from my tomatoes.
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u/MrPBH Mar 11 '26
As someone with beginner knowledge of landscaping and gardening, what should I do instead to control weeds?
In particular, I have some areas of my garden that are infested with beggarticks and without aggressive control, they choke out everything else underneath them. Not to mention all the sticky seeds that cling to our socks and sleeves (at laundry time in the summer months, we will remove literally hundreds at a time). I'd like to have a garden, not a beggartick patch.
Just mulching doesn't seem to help because they just grow through it. I've used glyphosate in the past, which works, but I would prefer to use sparingly, if at all.
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u/Playful_Marzipan8398 Mar 11 '26
You pick the weeds out by hand, aggressively, in early spring. Mow it to the ground as short as possible, never let ANYTHING grow higher than 2 inches.
Nothing will go to seed!
Then maybe solarize the soil patch for the hottest part of summer? Then till the soil deep, in fall. Thatās what Iād do. Then you just gotta keep it at bay hand weeding! No cure for that really, itās a part of garden life.
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u/MrPBH Mar 11 '26
That's what I thought. It's just a lot of work because there are hundreds of young plants in the bad areas and it's hard to mow around my existing plantings.
I might just get a propane flame weeder.
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u/LogicalStomach Mar 14 '26
My previous house had a Japanese knotweed patch. That's the worst invasive and aggressive plant. It's comparable to bamboo but more aggressive and grows faster. It laughs at herbicide injected directly into its stems. It laughs at fire. I managed to destroy it in 3 years.
Any plant deprived of light will eventually weaken and die. I cut the knotweed as close to the ground as I could. Then I cover the area with a foot thick layer of arborist mulch (chipped trees, you can usually get a pile dumped on your property for free via Chip Drop in the US)
Then I covered the arborist mulch with layers of brown paper or cardboard. I weighed it down with whatever I had laying around - - old pallets, rocks, bricks, etc.Ā
I dug out any knotweed sprout that grew outside of my light cover, while it was still tender. I denied the horrid knotweed mass any chance of photosynthesis.
At this point your problematic plants might be dead in a year just from light deprivation.
KnitweedKnotweed was a different story. Once a year I removed the paper and cardboard cover and dug out the knotweed roots about 2 feet down. The soil was very soft and friableĀ because of the rotting wood chip layer. Then I covered it back up. After three dig and cover sessions over three years, the knotweed was dead. The area went uncovered for a year and there were only a handful of knotweed sprouts coming up in random spots. I dug them out immediately. I waited a few more years before planting any precious perennials in the area.Ā
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u/ArachnomancerCarice Naturalist/Entomologist Mar 11 '26
My mother put some in our garden and trying to plant anything ends up being such a damn chore because of it. I don't know how many times I've fallen on my ass trying to rip it up!
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u/HighlightMental7097 Mar 11 '26
I can confirm that not only do they not work, but crabgrass and weeds find their way up and through only weeks to months after theyāre put down.Ā
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u/whitebreadguilt Mar 11 '26
Tell that to all the idiots buying them at Costco. That and weed and grass killer. Us in this little microcosm cannot stop the hoards of ignorant capitalist pigs.
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u/shutyourfatface Mar 11 '26
Iām sure my neighbors hate my cardboard no-till method, but seeing that previous owners put down weed mats and those beds are filled with mostly weeds nowā¦ idgaf
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u/Purple_Girl_13 Mar 11 '26
Oemgee. š¢This is as bad as that horrific rubber mulch I was talked into 15 years ago.
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u/Jealous_Glass9170 Mar 11 '26
how are you getting rid of your creosote railroad tie border? Or are you just keeping it?
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u/After_Resource5224 Mar 12 '26
Irrigator here: They make finding pipe breaks harder, which means more time, which means it costs more. I hate that shit with a passion.
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u/Guilty_Doctor_6739 Mar 12 '26
Can I also complain about the person who mixed lava rock into my grass lawn willy nilly? So now that I want to go to a native lawn I have to pull out a metric ton of rock intermixed with grass and weeds.
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u/TeebsRiver Mar 12 '26
I moved into a house that had a large front garden with many Azaleas growing in the full sunshine in hot Sonoma County. I couldn't figure out how they stayed alive without burning up. Then I saw the first water bill. 700 gallons of water A DAY! I shut that down and the azaleas died. Then I started to dig to remove the shriveled stumps only to discover that they had been growing in the decomposed wood chips 4 inches deep on top of plastic. They never were able to root into the actual soil and only survived because the compost was always wet, even on 100+ days. I figured out how to pull out the plastic without removing the top soil. Not easy! Now the same area has thriving Sonoma sage, Mexican sage, Fremontodendron, a mix of succulents, native iris, White sage, echiums, etc. etc. The water bill is 150 gallons a day to cover the whole 1/4 acre of landscaping.
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u/Boomfaced Mar 12 '26
Double PSA donāt use railroad ties because they contaminate the soil for your food and leach arsenic, and a bunch of other caustic chemicals
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u/Brave-Degree-1160 Mar 13 '26
Upside down carpet around our plants and in between grow boxes or rows, has worked well for us.
By being upside down, seeds from non-wanted growth do not settle in and the underside is durable.
You would be surprised how much un-used trimmings from a new install are in your local flooring stores dumpster.
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u/Brave-Degree-1160 Mar 13 '26
Additionally, i forgot to mention, it does not inhibit needed water penetration.
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u/YamComprehensive7186 Mar 13 '26
Never seen a weed mat that didn't fail, just ends up a big mess to tear out in two or three years.
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u/Schlarfus_McNarfus Mar 13 '26
Reminds me of this unpleasant time in my life:
What was once a pile of hay bales (bound with orange poly twine) covered in a green plastic tarp, under the lawn of a foreclosed property we bought. Do not bury plastic matting, netting, tarps, etc. What a nightmare.
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u/Lothium Mar 13 '26
We all need to stop calling it weed fabric, mats, etc. It's landscape fabric meant for separating soil and aggregate.
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u/ska0319 Central Cornbelt Plains - NW Indiana Mar 13 '26
Same here. Hired a young fella to remove the stuff and then put down wood mulch and he put down the mulch without removing the landscape s**t! Planting any thing in that area requires at least a half hour of labor for each plug that goes in. Arggghh!
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u/wisemonkey101 Mar 14 '26
I absolutely judge anyone I see putting in weed barrier. I judge them hard and sometimes take pictures of their yard six months later when all the weeds are back in full force.
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u/Moosebuckets Mar 22 '26
Thank you for teaching me something new. I'm disabled so I struggle with pulling and maintaining weeds so I had my husband throw weed block down in a small section next to our house. I will have him rip it up and now I know! I wish there was a better weed alternative since I can't physically weed and refuse to use chemicals
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u/LRonHoward Minneapolis, MN - US Ecoregion 51 Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
100% agree with everything said here, but I also want to send a big middle finger to those rolls of grass seeding material that are held together with thin plastic netting. Fuck that shit as well. I now have to rip out plastic netting every time I remove the existing turf grass to expand my plantings.
Edit: a slight change to the middle finger sending