I've got a new yard......

We just bought a new home (4 yrs old) and the previous owners did a fabulous job of planting the backbones. I have tons of shrubs that are all 3-4 yrs old (hydrangeas, rhododendrons, azaleas, lilacs, red twig dogwoods, holly). So far I've only seen a few daffodils poke up through the soil. I moved a mere 3 1/2 miles from my previous home and a visit there today showed most of my perennials are putting up new growth, so I'm pretty certain there's little to no perennials or bulbs planted at my new place.

My question is that they had the shrubbery and trees all professionally installed. They used the black landscaping fabric that prevents weeds. I never used this stuff before at my old place. My plans are to fill every inch of the garden beds with perennials (plants, bulbs and a few more shrubs -- butterfly bushes and some more lilacs for sure). There is a sad looking layer of pine bark mulch down (most of which has blown away and exposed the fabric).

Would I be better off just raking back the pine bark and pulling up the landscape fabric or should I simply re-mulch and make my planting holes through the fabric. I've always thought this fabric was a pain to work with. Thoughts and opinions would be appreciated. Have you used the fabric? How much trouble was it once you really got a bed filled in with plants? Was it just in the way after a couple of years?

Brenda

Congrats on the new place Brenda!

I don't like the stuff because it makes it hard to amend the soil, cultivate around the shrubs, and each time you want to add a plant or move a plant it means cutting another hole in the stuff. I also find that unless the mulch (bark or whatever) is 4-6" deep, it just seems to disappear over time or blows into rows or piles with winter wind.

I'd much rather pull a few weeds than deal with the stuff.

Such fun you are going to have!

Thanks, Candy. Your thoughts are kind of what I was thinking. I prefer to use cypress or cedar mulch and I always kept mine at about 4" and re-mulched to 6" each season (DH thought I was nuts, but I didn't have bare spots!). At my last home, the previous owners had put in a couple of new beds and I was loathe to find black plastic (not fabric) and I ended up clearing it out of all those beds. My guess (hope) is that the fabric is much easier to pull up.

I've yet to dig into the soil although that will start VERY soon. This area was a nice big farmers crop field (I remember it a few short years ago) so I'm hoping I'll find some nice loamy soil. I doubt I'll be that lucky to have no sign of the gray clay that this area of Kansas is known for.

How goes your new home site? Has any digging begun or are you still in the approval stages still?

Still waiting........we got the engineered grading plans today, it's like a vicious circle. Now back to the septic guy, then back to the actual grader.......I have the house plans on HOLD until all this nonsense with the bureaucracy (that sp doesn't look right!) is a little further along. And this is just the engineering stage, we haven't even gotten to the county yet. I can't wait to see what nonsense will come with that. :-)

I don't envy you those headaches. I've said many times that I don't think I could endure the trials of building a home. I admire you.

Well congrats, Brenda!

Funny you should mention this, because I was just thinking about doing the landscape fabric, lol. I'll be interested in hearing from everyone else. I know how badly I fight weeds here, and have so much area to cover (and there's only me to pull weeds ) :(

Did you bring any of your plants (and lilies) or do you have to start all over?

I'm sort of dragging my feet on getting some repairs done on the house (fresh coat of paint, etc) before we put it on the market. That foot dragging is in order to buy me enough time for the ground to be ready to dig in. Then I'll be digging and transplanting as much as I can from the old house. I'll certainly leave plenty for the new homeowners (wouldn't want to be accused of having bare garden beds! oh my).

I actually think the lily bulbs might be the hardest for me to get. I'm always so nervous about digging bulbs because I inevitably spear a few. Since I planted these as singles last fall I *know* I don't have any babies yet and I don't think I'll dare digging blindly in the soil for those that haven't broke ground. I did go over there today and saw that a few (3 or 4) have broken ground. Maybe in a couple of more weeks more will be up so I can get them.

Hi, there! How fantastic for you!!!! A new house!!!

I have to admit that I like the landscaping fabric (duck)! BUT, I only like it in spots where I'm not planting anything else for a few years. It has its benefits and drawbacks. If you're planting a ton of stuff (or even a modest number of plants) in that space, I'd yank it up altogether. Especially since the house is only 3-4 years old, you'll likely have to work the soil pretty good to get a good start. I'd be suprised if the area was heavily amended by the previous owners.

Our house is one year old now, and we've tried hard to get going on the "bones" of the property. In places where we have planted trees/shrubs but won't be planting anything else for a couple of years, we used the black weed fabric under the mulch. It doesn't let anything through and it's environmentally safer than herbicides for new beds. After a couple of years, when we change the mulch and take the fabric off, the weeds that were in that bed will be goners. We used the fabric on our beds in Virginia for just one year and the following year, after we removed it, the perennial bed was really, really low on weeds. I even had a neighbor comment to me once about how few weeds I had compared to the other houses by mine. So, there is a benefit to the stuff. Hopefully, you'll find it's done the same good in your yard & can thank it and throw it out :)

It's at best a pain in the trowel in a perennial bed. For one thing, the perennials don't always come up through their little "x" cut in the fabric. My first year gardening, I had to rescue 2 bleeding heart that had been trying in vain to come up through the fabric, but were running like vines all underneath it. Beginner's lesson.... but they lived! :) So, I'm rambling here, basically - we shaped our beds, tilled, amended, laid out the fabric and then planted the "bones" in our shrub borders, but I wouldn't recommend keeping the weed fabric in a mixed/ perennial bed situation.

Why couldn't I have just said that last sentence in the first place??? LOL :)

Hugs :)

ROTFL!!!!!! That picture looks hilarious! Oh my word, to have a mature tree around here!!! :)

I just wanted to show that this is the "type" of bed I think it's useful for. Teeny weeny shrubs and trees that will eventually fill up the space and make it a true "shrub border" but for now look like a pitiful piece of landscaping goof! LOL! Ah, the joys of a new construction....

"Someday I will have pretty plants again, someday I will have pretty plants again...."

ROTFL, ha ha ha ha :)

Here's a recent thread with pics of another part of our yard (with fabric)
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/492481/

Take care & congrats!!!!
Hugs :)

This message was edited Mar 23, 2005 11:17 PM

Oh, man I HATE that fabric stuff. We've used it around trees and shrubs that won't have anything else planted around them, but never ever in the big garden beds. I like to fill those beds so that there is something blooming all summer, and not much ground showing. I move stuff around a lot (That;s a big lie!! I make DH move stuff around!) so it's inconvenient when you have to deal with the fabric. I like deep layers of mulch, too, and we get wood chips free from our municipality, not good looking stuff, it's kind of shredded, but free is free, right? So, bottom line, discretionary use of fabric, mass quantities of mulch everywhere else. We started from scratch 4 years ago, and now are in the "let's move those mums, etc. mode as the perennials that have survived two bad winters are now too big for their britches and need relocating.

HI! My 2cents worth - I use fabric or whatever I can find (old carpet works good if you're in a dry area) - but only where there are big gaps that I'm not planting in (I have 1/2 acre up front). I don't use it in my actual beds - its too difficult to work with.

I use mulch - I can just scoot it over to plant or divide or amend the soil.

Out here we get so much wind that in a year there's enough sand on top of the facric to let most weeds grow right on top of it anyway! - I do like it under rocked areas, though, because then I don't need to put chemical pre-emergents down.
-Christie

Great info, everyone.

Jacki - I empathize with ya on the sapling trees. My old house was like that. I have a lot of trees they put in here on the 2 acres we bought. I just counted 20 total trees she put in. We're lucky in that we have the farmer's old hedgerow right behind our property (it's actually the back line of our property). Pics of the yard last summer show a nice 35 foot tall wall of green leaves along the back.

Sounds like everyone agrees that fabric if used at all is best where you won't be digging a lot or frequently.

A well-respected landscaper in this area says that the only reason to use landscape fabric is if you want to spend the rest of your days picking little pieces of fabric out of your flowerbeds! (It isn't bio-degradable, but it does break down.) If it's still in (fairly) one piece, I'd grab it out of there as soon as possible.

I sure is maggiemoo. Whether it breaks down or not if I left it and then cut X's in it to plant it would be in shreds just from my X's. LOL. Soon as this rain stops here (they say "maybe" this weekend) then I'll be raking back the mulch and pulling that stuff up.

cchipvitti, do i see c chip okay cchip, welcome to DG nice to meet you, have same blow sand [possibly true] layer / also anything nowt covered with something either leaves on the next wind or sprouts mustard and cheat grass.

Where's Lochbuie? your neighbor to the west ~Blooms

Blooms! Hi! Lochbuie is near Brighton, Co - roughly 30mi NE of Denver - on the plains.

The weeds are more than happy to move in here but, fortunately, they don't like competition too much so heavily planting and mulching does wonders!
Wind is probably my biggest enemy here - that's why I had to take out my ponds and waterfall - I spent more time picking junk out of them - it just got to be ridiculous! -Christie

LQQking for my garbage can lid as I wander the back yard today. heehee yep it's gets flaish fat out there.

We built our house in a cornfield 14 years ago and put up a fence the day we moved in. We bit the bullet and planted four 20 foot trees in our front & back yards that same year. (Shade for our babied hunting dogs who live in the house & play outside.) I also planted a dozen dwarf fruit trees at the back of the yard (replaced by flowerbeds now) and a few saplings. Our neighbors refer to us as "the forest" . I put most of the trees in the center of the yard providing lovely overlapping shade now & lots of sun around the edges for my flowering shrubs & flower beds.

I have never used the landscape fabric myself, but have run into it when volunteering for community projects. it's okay if you just want bushes & low care----AWFUL if you need to add and change perennials alot! I tore it out of the school beds & just used heavy mulch to smother weeds. I would tear it out NOW since a REAL gardener Is always rearranging their world... :)

Don't worry hugahosta...I am laughing WITH you! That looks like such an enjoyable spot to sit and get a sunburned forehead!! ;-)

In cases like hugahosta's playground set, I think that landscape fabric is a great choice. In areas where you plan on planting, I would throw down a thick layer of newspaper under the mulch. The newspaper will help kill off all the weeds now, it will decompose and feed the soil, and it will be gone when you get around to planting.

Brenda: good luck with the new home!!

- Brent

Brent that's what I do for new garden beds too (using the newspaper)! No need to dig the old sod that way.

My lovely SIL just brought me a big ole bag of newspaper for that specific purpose! :)

LOL, brent... very funny :)