No weedcloth?

[B_gerrits]

I am trying to understand something. Mulch can describe a lot of different material some ve never seen like pine straw nobody sells that here. Mulch here is usually grond or shredded cedar. I sell a lot of guys posting not to use weedcloth so what do you guys use? If you put ground bark down without weedcloth out here it will be full of weeds in a month! I guess could use pre emergence but it only last a couple of months so you guys that dont use weedcloth what do you use please educate me.

[billslawn89]

if you make sure no weeds are growing before you apply the mulch and install the proper thickness of mulch, you should not have a problem. you will in time get a weed here and there due to weed seeds blowing in the air. i only use weed cloth/landscape fabric when putting down stone. :dancing:

[JFF]

Weed cloth is a pet peeve of mine. I just despise the stuff.

As Bill said, use a chemical strait jacket.

[PerfectEarth]

Weed cloth is a pet peeve of mine. I just despise the stuff.

I agree. I HATE landscape fabric. It's a weekend-warrior product. It doesn't really stop weeds over a couple seasons, the edges always flap up or it gets exposed, desireable plant roots get confined to growing on surfaces... the stuff is horrible. I have some good pics of what weed fabric does to plants.

Get in there with some elbow grease and pull. Spray. Use pre-m. Be persistent

[jaybird24]

Only place we use it is with stone. In mulch the weeds will actually grow into the fabric and then it's real fun getting out. Pre-m, roundup and elbow grease.

[frogman18]

i use fabric to line raised beds over the gravel bottom and places that are extremely weed prone (i dont like to chemicals unless i have to).

[gorknoids]

Weed cloth generally just ensures that the weeds that grow through it have sufficient H2O. That, and it wraps up nicely around any auger bit which encounters it.

[Merlin300]

The mulch will eventually break down into dirt anyway. Then you will have dirt on top of weed fabric, giving the weeds some place to germinate. Kinda defeats the purpose of weed fabric.

As the others have said, weed before laying down mulch atleast 3" thick.

[tamadrummer]

Weed fabric is horrible unless it is going under stone.

Get a fert applicator to apply some snapshot granules and your newly mulched beds will not be having weeds for some months to come.

Just for the love of all things holy, stay away from the fabric! It is useless!!

[Mr. Vern]

Yeah, what these guys all said.

Also, we advise our customers to keep a bottle of Roundup mixed up and the minute you see a weed, hit it. Do this for a season and the weeds will be reduced dramatically. The problem is when a customer allows the weeds to come up and go to seed before they deal with them. If they kill them before they go to seed, eventually there won't be any seeds to germinate - except those that get blown in of course.
Drip irrigation also helps a lot - although it has it's own pitfalls.

[B_gerrits]

The mulch will eventually break down into dirt anyway. Then you will have dirt on top of weed fabric, giving the weeds some place to germinate. Kinda defeats the purpose of weed fabric.

As the others have said, weed before laying down mulch atleast 3" thick.

This is true but here we have adobe soil which is clay and pulling weeds out of it is extremely difficult. the weed fabric makes it so the roots cant go very deep and they are easier to pull.

[k911lowe]

I am trying to understand something. Mulch can describe a lot of different material some ve never seen like pine straw nobody sells that here. Mulch here is usually grond or shredded cedar. I sell a lot of guys posting not to use weedcloth so what do you guys use? If you put ground bark down without weedcloth out here it will be full of weeds in a month! I guess could use pre emergence but it only last a couple of months so you guys that dont use weedcloth what do you use please educate me.

pre emergence,depending on what you buy and where,can last up to 5 years and longer.

[tamadrummer]

pre emergence,depending on what you buy and where,can last up to 5 years and longer.

Can you elaborate? Are you talking about a soil sterilizer
or an actual pre-m that will allow plants to grow?

I know that others have said that snapshot will do about the best at 10 months of control but 5 years? What are you using?

[B_gerrits]

Can you elaborate? Are you talking about a soil sterilizer
or an actual pre-m that will allow plants to grow?

I know that others have said that snapshot will do about the best at 10 months of control but 5 years? What are you using?

Snapshot works for 10 months? I will have to see if that is available here. I am in Calif where they outlaw everything that works. Preen is the big pre m here which only works for 3 months.

[tamadrummer]

Snapshot works for 10 months? I will have to see if that is available here. I am in Calif where they outlaw everything that works. Preen is the big pre m here which only works for 3 months.

The cool thing is is that it is around $110 for 50# and that 50# will treat between 10k and 21k feet of beds.

Compare that to the price of preen and you are taking a huge beating on preen because you have to apply it regularly.

I cannot apply it because I am not licensed but I am trying to get all my ducks in a row for when I have my Limited license for bed maintenance to be able to sell these services.

[B_gerrits]

Well gentlemen you have educated me why you guys think weed fabric is for rookies. Heres my problem it appears snapshot is not sold here the pre m I can find is Ronn Star or preen both products only have a lifetime of 3 months which i think weed fabric is a better choice than either of those. i plan to call DOW who makes snapshot and see if there any vendors who sell it here.

[Smallaxe]

Would an extra few inches of mulch be cheaper? Even in clay soils the weeds can't root?
Up here our best bet is a routine monthly tilling. 2 months of cleaning the mulch, 2 months of weeding the mulch, then finish the season cleaning the mulch b4 snow.

People love their mulch :)

[Daner]

Waste of time to lay It down with stone as well...IMO thats not the way to Install rock mulch.

[TonyG]

how do you protect against weeds coming through? I have a job coming up in a few weeks.

[tamadrummer]

how do you protect against weeds coming through? I have a job coming up in a few weeks.

Use either preen or snapshot and the reason I use the weedcloth under stone is simply to keep it from migrating into the soil and disappearing over time.

There are probably better ways to do this but this is how I do it. I am always game to learn a new method to make my work better.

[Mr. Vern]

Keep in mind here that the reason you have so many weeds at first is that the weeds have been allowed to grow until they produce seed, which falls to the ground and lies dormant until the conditions are right for germination.
With a Pre-M, you are killing the weeds as soon as they germinate and so they never go to seed and so the cycle is broken. Once you have cleansed the soil in this manner, your need for weed control is dramatically reduced. The key here is regular maintenance and Pre-M. It is not critical how long the Pre-M lasts as long as you apply more before it stops working, and if you miss the window all you have to do is to kill the weeds before they go to seed and the cycle continues unabated!

Daner - I'm curious why you don't like the weed barrier under the rock. I have found that it works very well at keeping the rock from working its way into the soil This makes it much easier to remove the rock when the customer finally realizes how ugly and unnatural it looks.:)

[B_gerrits]

Keep in mind here that the reason you have so many weeds at first is that the weeds have been allowed to grow until they produce seed, With a Pre-M, you are killing the weeds as soon as they germinate and so they never go to seed and so the cycle is broken. Once you have cleansed the soil in this manner, your need for weed control is dramatically reduced. The key here is regular maintenance and Pre-M. It is not critical how long the Pre-M lasts as long as you apply more before it stops working, and if you miss the window all you have to do is to kill the weeds before they go to seed and the cycle continues unabated!:)

Your first statement I sort of agree with except that birds and wind spread weeds as well. As for regular maint that would be nice but a lot of installs are just that, cust says they will do own maint(yeah right). Anyways I was pulling weeds in my backyard and it was extremley easy because of the weedcloth I installed, its two years old and still working.

[Mr. Vern]

Your first statement I sort of agree with except that birds and wind spread weeds as well. As for regular maint that would be nice but a lot of installs are just that, cust says they will do own maint(yeah right). Anyways I was pulling weeds in my backyard and it was extremley easy because of the weedcloth I installed, its two years old and still working.

I don't disagree with any of your points. But here is my rebuttal.:)

Yes, Birds and wind do spread seeds, but at a small fraction of the rate that allowing the weeds to go to seed does.
We have a very nice discussion with our customers on the do's and don'ts of maintenance. We can usually predict the yards that will be let go before we start the job. We are occasionally surprised, but it's usually obvious. We strongly advise most of our customers to hire a high end maintenance company, and we give them good referrals to call. At the end of the day, if they don't maintain it, weed barrier aint gonna help enough!
I agree that pulling the weeds is in fact easier on top of the fabric, but wait until you decide it is time to till the mulch into the soil so you can re-mulch the bed. Not gonna be any fun - especially trying to untangle the fabric from the tiller:laugh:
At the end of the day, it's to each his own. Our goal is to educate our customers on the pros and cons and let them make the decision. That way they won't blame us if it was the wrong one.

[Smallaxe]

I don't disagree with any of your points. But here is my rebuttal.:)

Yes, Birds and wind do spread seeds, but at a small fraction of the rate that allowing the weeds to go to seed does.
We have a very nice discussion with our customers on the do's and don'ts of maintenance. We can usually predict the yards that will be let go before we start the job. We are occasionally surprised, but it's usually obvious. We strongly advise most of our customers to hire a high end maintenance company, and we give them good referrals to call. At the end of the day, if they don't maintain it, weed barrier aint gonna help enough!
I agree that pulling the weeds is in fact easier on top of the fabric, but wait until you decide it is time to till the mulch into the soil so you can re-mulch the bed. Not gonna be any fun - especially trying to untangle the fabric from the tiller:laugh:
At the end of the day, it's to each his own. Our goal is to educate our customers on the pros and cons and let them make the decision. That way they won't blame us if it was the wrong one.

The cons far outway the pros. If you plan on a 20 yr. customer and a 2 year fabric - your odds are 10 to 1.
Add in the rhizomes of the invasive grasses and sucker roots of shrubs and misc. weeds; you have yourself quite a cocktail of "let's do over".

Each plant is an indivdual and fabric harbor roots, equally for all. In that environment the most invasive critter always wins.

[B_gerrits]

I don't disagree with any of your points. But here is my rebuttal.:)

Yes, Birds and wind do spread seeds, but at a small fraction of the rate that allowing the weeds to go to seed does.
At the end of the day, if they don't maintain it, weed barrier aint gonna help enough!
I agree that pulling the weeds is in fact easier on top of the fabric, but wait until you decide it is time to till the mulch into the soil so you can re-mulch the bed. Not gonna be any fun - especially trying to untangle the fabric from the tiller:laugh:
At the end of the day, it's to each his own. Our goal is to educate our customers on the pros and cons and let them make the decision. That way they won't blame us if it was the wrong one.

Actually I dont ever anticipate having to run a tiller in the area I have the weed cloth installed. Its all ground bark and flagstones. The bark fades and I get more bark and put a new top layer on and its good for another year. Unless things change drastracially here I dont think to many customers will change from mulch to lawn because the cost of water is through the roof. I totally agree if the cust doesnt do any maint weed fabric will not help much. Here lawn is becomming history as more people go to desert landscape, or rock, or bark and flowers or xeriscape. Stained bark is becomming a fad here its suppose to last longer as all mulch fades in a year or two. Anyways thank you for your imput its always nice to have discussion with people that have different methods and points of views thats how I learn a lot of things. I think that from now on I will tell peop[le about pre m and weed fabric and let them decide what they want. I do agree with you that regular maint and pre m is the better way to go.

[Mr. Vern]

Well B-Gerrits, it sounds like you are making an informed decision and will most likely have found the best balance of pros and cons.
My whole point is to share my experiences so that others can benefit from my successes and failures alike. As you can probably tell, I have been frustrated with barrier fabric over the years and so my opinion is certainly biased.
Take care!

[B_gerrits]

Well B-Gerrits, it sounds like you are making an informed decision and will most likely have found the best balance of pros and cons.
My whole point is to share my experiences so that others can benefit from my successes and failures alike. As you can probably tell, I have been frustrated with barrier fabric over the years and so my opinion is certainly biased.
Take care!

Well weed fabric is certainly not con free and I can see where if the cust changed the material they are using it would be a major pain. Pre m also can be a pain in that you have the cost of it and having to re apply every 3 months although any yard without maint for 3 months will look like sheet so I guess the only con would be the cost of having to reapply it. I totally love to hear your success and failures as that can save me a learning experience by learning from yours as I am also willing to share my experiences with anyone who can benefit from them on this site.