USE or DON'T USE?

Hello, I've found an intrest in landscaping and I have a few ?s.
1. when you till the area you want to use: DO you or do you NOT use the black tarp stuff to keep the weeds from coming up? I've heard too many things to decide for myself. So any advice would be great.
2. Now how do I judge the time of light that the area gets? Is it by the time of day that the sun hits it or by amount of sun it gets period?
3. Is it too late to do landscaping this time of year? I'm in S. TX. and it's really getting hot.
Thanks for the Help,
Gina

Here are my thoughts on your questions...
1) You can use the black fabric temporarily to smother weeds if you want (but remove it before you plant), and you can use it under hardscape (like a path or a flagstone patio) but I would not leave it covering a garden bed when you go to plant. Personally if you want to put down stuff to smother the weeds, I'd use a nice layer of newspaper, it will decompose eventually and you can plant right through it if you want, so it serves the same function as the fabric but is better for your soil (put mulch over top of it to keep it from looking unsightly and blowing away)
2) It's both...typically full sun is considered more than 6 hrs of sun, part sun is ~4-6 hrs, etc. But afternoon sun "counts" more than morning sun. Given your hot summer climate, if you have a plant that says it wants part sun, but the sun it's going to get is in the hottest part of the afternoon, it will probably not be happy with those conditions but if you give it 4 hrs of sun earlier in the day it'll be perfectly fine. And even some plants that come labeled as full sun will prefer to have a bit of shade during the hottest part of the day (but don't worry, there are some plants can grow in full hot sun too)
3) I would say yes it's too late, but I know how hard it is to wait! You can still plant but you're going to have to be MUCH more vigilant on watering than you would otherwise, and you're going to wind up with a lot more things dying than you would if you planted during a cooler time of year. And if you get a heat wave at the wrong time, then sometimes you can do everything as right as possible but it's still not enough to save the plant. (Every year I ignore my own advice and plant things in the late spring and early summer, and every year my success rate on those plants is much lower than ones that I plant in the fall or in the early spring) But for plants that are going in a fairly shady area you can probably plant with not nearly as many problems, I've had good success doing that. If you do decide to plant, watering is key, and also if you can rig up some shade over the plants that would really help them too. On the watering, make sure you check regularly by sticking your finger down in the soil a few inches...if it's drying out then water but if it still feels pretty damp then don't water even if the plants are wilting (newly planted roots can't take up water fast enough while the sun is beating down to keep the plant from wilting, but if you add more water when there's already plenty in the soil then you'll wind up rotting the roots and killing it that way).

If you want some bloomin' things and the fun of getting into the soil and seeing your garden grow etc., just put in some annuals and you can be planning your fall planting at the same time. You can also mess with arrangement and color and height and width etc. etc. with the annuals. Annuals are less expensive so it doesn't need to be a big investment for you either.

Gina-
this is my opinion on the black landscape fabric. I use it all the time and in every garden. It helps with weeds. Not as many will come up and it really helps me with maintaining the gardens because I don't have to worry about pulling or spraying weeds. Just make sure when you plant something you just cut a hole out of the fabric and plant the plant or flowers in the soil.

I could not have the garden I have without using the black landscaping woven fabric, for a start my garden is far to big to be continually weeding, the soil gets eroded by the winds right off the ocean and it helps prevent the soil drying out too fast from the wind, but make sure you use woven fabric that lets the soil get moisture, air and cover the fabric with a thick mulch to hide the fabric, the mulch eventually composts down after several years and you do get the weeds growing in this composted mulch but I rake it over every spring and this removes the weed seedlings as well as neatens up the borders, you can also lay decorative mulches like graver chippings all colours or grades and sizes which helps to hide the fabric and the weeds cant get long tap roots down so easily, I know their are lots of people against the use of this fabric and have read lots of good and bad reports, but the bad reports appear to be from people who think even this wont need maintained, ALL gardens need some sort of clean up or maintenance from time to time, so if you think it is a cure all for everything then forget it, I use it along shrub borders where the plants will be there for many, many years, and it has done no harm at all, I grow Rhododendrons, Azaleas, Camelias and various types of trees etc, the only draw back for me is that when I want to feed these shrubs, I need to use all feeds that can be watered into the soil as it is difficult after years of growth to then add solid feeds under the heavy growth and because of the fabric. Before I used the woven fabric, I also prepared the soil well and added tons of organic matter such as leaf mould, slow release plant feeds etc to last for the first few years, if I need to sort out an overgrown shrub, then you have to cut the fabric to reach the spread out roots and replace this planting hole with a further piece of fabric or you will get weeds growing into the bare soil. good luck with whatever you decide, I dont use this fabric in my flower borders as it would be lifted every few years when the perennials required lifting to split them up. best of luck. WeeNel.

I havent used the fabric. But I had many many many weeds all over my back yard when I started my garden this year. I did the 'lasagna' composting beds to start my beds. its now 2 months later and everything is blooming... EXCEPT weeds! :oD

I pulled all of the weeds out of the area and then used really thick layers of WET newspaper as a weed barrier. then piled my soil and amendments on top. When I planted, I just dug right thru the wet newspaper and planted my plants. I have only had a few weeds pop up and I think these are from seeds that blew in and germinated on the soil above the wet newspaper layer... as the roots of them are barely in the top layer.

If you do decide on the newspaper barrier, you want to make the layer really thick (several sections of newspaper) or wet corregated cardboard will also work. Just dunk it in a tub and let it soak up water... and then lay it flat on your bed :o) probably alot cheaper than the fabric anyhow :o) good luck!

Please consider asking your local county extension office for their definition of "full sun" for your area. In central Alabama, "full sun" is defined by the extension office and their support academics at Auburn as four (4) hours of morning sun. Few plants will tolerate our morning and afternoon sun. Do you have termites in your soil? We all do in central AL, but I still use newspaper. I do have a termite warranty, which is not cheap, but termites just love moist paper (formerly wood products). I have also used the landscape fabric, but if we put too much mulch on top of it, the birds just leave us more weeds (defined as being any plant I don't want in the spot it chooses to grow). I wish you well.