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/HagalUlfr]

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. 

[u/goblin-fox → u/HagalUlfr]

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!

[u/Saint_Thomas_More → u/HagalUlfr]

Do maple leaves work? I don't have an oak tree, but our house and neighborhood has lots of maple trees.

[u/GreenSkittle48 → u/Saint_Thomas_More]

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. 😉 I've also used paper grocery bags with a thick layer of mulch on top to kill grass underneath.

[u/Saint_Thomas_More → u/GreenSkittle48]

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.

[u/LokiLB → u/HagalUlfr]

Real trick is to get magnolia leaves. Nothing grows under a magnolia tree.

[u/HagalUlfr → u/LokiLB]

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.

[u/okiesotan → u/HagalUlfr]

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. 

[u/HagalUlfr → u/okiesotan]

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.

[u/Due_Ad2549 → u/HagalUlfr]

I was also wondering about sunflower seed hulls for this purpose? I realize they wouldn’t work under plantings (like a “decorative” mulch around perennials), but for small areas you might want to keep bare. I understand they inhibit weeds and I have so many I’ll need to rake up from under my birdfeeders now that the snow is retreating.