Spending time on your yard making your landscape look superb can add to your house’s curb appeal as well as your own enjoyment. But nothing is worse than putting in all that time and effort only to deal with weed problems. Not only do weeds look unappealing, they can cost you hours of frustration and hard work. The solution to the problem might be in choosing the right landscape fabric — one that’s designed for weed control.

Weed control fabric should be used in permanent settings such as in mulch beds, around trees and shrubs — places where you want to stop weeds but also want water, air and nutrients to reach the roots of desirable plants. It also is ideal for using under patios and decks, walkways or paths, around swimming pools, under sandboxes and children’s play sets.

Products sold as a “Landscape Fabric” usually claim multiple functions, including soil stabilization, erosion and drainage applications, as well as weed control. Unfortunately, the properties that make it effective for stabilization and drainage uses also make it ineffective for weed control. Stopping weeds requires a material with very low permeability, yet all other applications require high permeability to allow water to pass through as it holds back soil and pebbles. It is important to understand the difference in fabrics in order to get the results you want.

The worst thing about using a fabric that isn’t designed for weed control is that it will actually make your weed problems much worse. When weed roots penetrate the fabric, they establish themselves and thrive in the moist soil below, making the weeds extremely difficult to remove. Their roots become entangled in the fabric and will tear up your landscaping as well as the fabric when you try to pull them out.

Quality and effectiveness vary widely among the weed control fabrics available in the marketplace. Almost all weed problems come from airborne weed seeds that settle and germinate in the top mulch. Most landscape fabrics on the market do not successfully combat this problem. The key is to use a fabric with limited openings; ideally a material that matches the soil’s ability to absorb water. There really are only three products on the market that offer this type of control, Weed-X, Weed-Proof, and Gardeneer Weed-Shield by Dalen Products. Weed-X in particular has been rated number 1 for stopping weeds by nine independent testing labs.

All other fabrics and films do not successfully control weeds because they are too porous. In other words, there are too many openings. All those openings are opportunities for weed roots to penetrate the fabric to the soil below.

“We feel the small pore spaces didn’t allow weed or tree roots to penetrate and get a foothold in the fabric,” explained Bonnie Lee Appleton, nursery specialist at Virginia Tech University, who has been testing various brands of landscape fabrics since 1987. “We found the Weed-X brand to have the smallest-sized pore spaces of all the fabrics tested. It also had the least amount of root penetration from weeds and nearby trees.”

Selecting the right product can be confusing because most landscape fabric packaging doesn’t distinguish between weed control and erosion control. So how can you tell the difference? Fabrics that you can easily see through are among the worst for weed control. Also, erosion control fabrics are generally a stiffer fabric known as non-woven spunbond or flatbond.

Weed-X is a patented, dual-layer material that is black on one side and light gray on the other. The small pores will help eliminate weed problems and give you the best level of control in your yard. You can find Weed-X and Weed-Proof at Wal-Mart stores. Visit www.weedxworks.com or call Dalen at (800) 747-3256 for more information.

Courtesy of ARA Content

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