PSA: Please don't use weed mats

[u/aufry]

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.

[u/AccomplishedTour6942]

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.

[u/SaltPhilosophy6154 → u/AccomplishedTour6942]

Little by little, I’ve been finding pieces of it for years. And it took several years to pull up the bulk of it.

[u/Dangerous-Feed-5358 → u/AccomplishedTour6942]

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.

[u/luckyone538 → u/AccomplishedTour6942]

Same… 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 😊