Landscape fabrics and other options

While considering the need for the unused area in your household to be used in a good way and not let weeds grow there, you have any options to choose. Many houses have such areas mostly in between their home and fence which because of the lack of much care and use become the favorite place for weeds. With proper care and planning, you could make use of this area in a wonderful manner so that it will become an added pride for your home. According to the reports of 'building inspection Sydney'

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real estate agents get done by building inspection experts, there are various options you could make use of. Planting a flower bed in the area will surely beautify your home. In order to avoid weeds growing on the area, you could make use of landscape fabrics, organic mulches, crushed stone or black plastic.

Most of the people consider laying planting landscape fabrics instead of other options because of various reasons. Compared to landscape fabrics, all other options have got many disadvantages that make people hesitate to use them. The major drawback cited about organic mulches is that they eventually decompose and the process of decomposition is hastened by the contact with soil. Also, there is another problem that as they decompose, they become fertile ground for weeds. Crushed stone is inorganic mulch which won?t decompose. But the problem is that stone easily works its way into the soil. Also, there is another drawback that it is hard to keep clean and draws considerable heat to the soil. Black plastic also do not decompose, but unlike stone it is easy to keep clean. The major problems associated with black plastic are that it not only does draw heat, but also prevents air, water and nutrients from penetrating into the soil. Because of all these reasons people prefer landscape fabrics to other options.

Reply to
Daniel1
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I am new to this and was wondering what this newsgroup was all about.

Reply to
person2

I find using landscape fabric is what works best for me in controlling weeds.

Reply to
Milo-n-Milo

Landscape fabric works best for me for controlling weeds.

Reply to
Milo-n-Milo

I have

Reply to
Stubby

I have been gardening for 40+ years and have experimented with many of the suggestions in your post. Landscape fabric allows weeds, specifically crabgrass, to come through and they are very difficult to remove. For many years, I have covered my vegetable garden with black plastic and it works well. Water and nutrients are not blocked as evidenced by dark soil underneath and healthy, productive plants. It is not very nice to look at but it does provide puddles for our cat to drink out of. I suppose you could put a thing layer of soil over it and grow turf or flowers but I've never tried that.

Reply to
Stubby

At my house we call most of that area lawn. LAndscape fabric is used in beds close to the house or in seperate dedicated areas.

real estate agents "get done" by building experts? I hope they enjoyed it.

I've used stone of various types and it isn't that it works itself into the soil. The problem is that dust, decaying leaves, etc goes on top of the stone and eventually you have enough there in between the stones that it supports weeds growing. The stone is still there and looks OK though. I guess if the process continues long enough, the rock will eventually get covered. But a lot of this depends on where you're located. What works in Arizona may not work in Maine.

Black plastic sure looks like hell compared to mulch or stone though. As for the landscape fabric, I've never seen it used here in the NYC area without being covered with either mulch or stone. Uncovered, I would think it wouldn't look very good either. Not what I'd want in the landscaped spaces around the perimeter of my house. Also, if it's uncovered, how do you anchor it down, so that it doesn't get blown around by the wind?

IMO, landscape fabric has at least as many drawbacks as mulch or stone. To make it look good and keep it in place, you need to cover it with stone or mulch. Once you do that, you're not much better off than just using the mulch or stone by themselves. I've tried or seen the results of stone, mulch, and landscape fabric with them. I've settled on mulch. It's not perfect. The main problem is that it does rot over time and needs to be replaced. But if you do that every 3 or 4 years, it works OK. And the plus is that when you renew it, it isn't that difficult and it looks like new again. I can see using black plastic or fabric for areas like a vegetable garden though.

Reply to
trader4

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