I did fabric once... then learned that snakes love to get warm under there. ICK! Now I just don't bother with anything. Mulch if I can, but don't put a lot of effort in.

Anonymous wrote:Yes just don't cover the fabric with anything.

Yeah, that will look really nice!

OP, skip the fabric, it's a bad idea for all the reasons explained above.

Thanks everyone!

Yes just don't cover the fabric with anything.

In my experience with landscape fabric, you still have to weed, and then eventually you have to weed through the landscape fabric, and then you have to dig up and pull out the shreds of landscape fabric.

My advice is to skip the landscape fabric and just use a thick layer of mulch -- wood chips, leaves, grass clippings, straw, etc.

The landscaping fabric rips and is useless. We just weed the beds, plant and use a dye free mulch (many have colored dyes in them now).

I second the recommendation for newspaper. I've been using it for years and think highly of it. The only place I use landscape fabric is places where the downspouts open to daylight.

Use newspaper, which will decompose over time, landscape fabric is a bad idea. Organic matter will accumulate on top of it, and weeds will grow in that and through the fabric into the soil, making them even harder to remove. You also prevent the mulch from improving your soil if you separate it from the soil by a later of plastic fabric. And it is a pain to rip out if you or a future owner ever want to do that (which is almost certain to happen).

Worked for me, still get some weeds around the plants. I have also had good luck with covering dirt with 4 layers of wet newspaper. I would put some mulch over either one so they look nice.

After I weeded the garden and turn the dirt I put down weed fabric to keep weeds from growing. Do you think it will work? I will make holes in fabric for planting.