Landscape fabric is also called weed control fabric, weed barrier fabric, weed fabric. Landscape weed barrier fabric is a great option to prevent weeds from your garden and landscaping areas. In this article, I’ll show you how to use landscape fabric step by step.
If you use landscape fabric in your garden, and landscape area weeds don’t get a chance to grow.
But landscape fabric allows water, nutrients, air, and fertilizer to reach the soil for feeding the roots of your current plants to grow well. Just cutting small holes in the fabric allows you to grow plants in the area where you want to plant. If you don’t install landscape/weed fabric correctly, some weeds can grow through, and sometimes you not going to benefit from landscape/weed fabric.
So, the correct installation of landscape weed barrier fabric is very important and necessary for the material to lay smoothly and work properly. When you’ve installed fabric correctly, the fabric will save your energy and time as well by reducing weeds in your garden and landscape area without having to pull them out.
Contents
Learn More About How to Use Landscape Fabric Step by Step:
Before you get started, you have to gather some supplies and tools. Here’s the list of what you needed for laying your fabric.
Supplies and Tools needed:
- Landscape or weed barrier fabric
- Garden fork
- Landscape staples
- Sharp scissors
- Utility knife
- Mulch
- Steel Rake
Now Step by Step Lay The Fabric:
Step Number 1:
At first, Pull and dig out all the existing weeds from your garden and landscape areas. It’s important and necessary to start the job with a weeds-free area, that’s why you have to dig and pull out the weeds from the areas where you want to lay your fabric.
Step Number 2:
Once you’ve pulled out weeds, turn your garden soil with a fork or a tiller. And put compost and all other fertilizer that you want to put in your garden soil.
The compost and any other soil additives work into the area ground-based on what you want to plant in the area. The landscape, weed fabric will cover your garden soil, must perform all amendments before you lay the fabric.
Step Number 3:
Now rake through your garden soil to smooth down the areas. Also, you must pick up any sticks, rocks, weeds, roots, and any other debris from your garden soil. Once you’ve picked everything, once again smooth your garden soil with the rake for last time.
Step Number 4:
In this step, you have to unroll your landscape or weed fabric. So, unroll your fabric, and lay the fabric lengthwise on your garden soil bed starting at one edge, and then work across.
Step Number 5:
Now take your utility knife, scissors, or a rotary fabric cutter, and cut the landscape/weed fabric with your scissors, utility knife, or a fabric rotary cutter so that your fabric can fit the area.
Also, you must cut additional pieces of landscape/weed fabric to cover a large area and overlap the pieces by 12/14 inches to prevent the weeds from squeezing in between gaps.
Step Number 6:
Now cut slits in your fabric to accommodate existing plants in the area, And then position the silt around the stem of your plant.
Step Number 7:
Step number seven, you have to smooth the fabric over the soil to prevent the lumps or bunching.
Now take your landscape staples, and push a landscape staple through the fabric and into the garden ground every few feet. And then secure all the edges of the fabric, such as the joints where two sheets of landscape or weed fabric meet.
Step Number 8:
Now you have to cut the fabric for plants. So, cut an x into the landscape/weed fabric in the place where you want to plant new plants.
Step Number 9:
Now make a hole under the x position where you cut for planting your new plant. And then cover the roots with soil. After that, you have to re-position the fabric over the soil.
Step Number 10:
This is the last step almost you’ve done the job, now cover the landscape/weed fabric with 2/3 inches of mulch.
Just place the mulch around your plants without piling it against the stems. Hope now you can put your landscape/weed fabric in your garden and landscape areas currently.
A Short Video About How to Install Landscape Fabric
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Some Common Mistake to Avoid When Lay The Landscape Fabric:
Here you’ll learn how to avoid some common mistakes when you lay down your landscape or weed fabric.
Number One: Not Having Enough Fabric
This is one of the biggest mistakes when people install landscaping fabrics. The mistake gardener and homeowner make when installing landscaping fabric is cutting the fabric too short.
To avoid this mistake and getting the right measurement always lay your fabric over the area for cutting. And you must leave a little bit extra to trim after you install the fabric.
Number Two: Not Overlapping
It’s gonna be alright if you overlap the landscape weed control fabric perfectly. But the common mistake people did is that people lay the fabric out with no overlapping or people lay in with too small of overlap.
So, due to the soil settling, ground moving, and some other factors, your fabric might move slightly. To avoid this mistake, you must keep an overlap of 2/4 inches, which will ensure that the ground stays covered.
Number Three: Smooth The Ground Before Laying Fabric
Not smoothing the ground before laying landscape weed control fabric is another common mistake. To avoid this mistake, simply pick up any weeds, rocks, debris from the ground and smooth the ground, and then lay down your landscape fabric.
Number Four: Making Holes Too Large for Plants
Once you’ve done the fabric installed, you have to cut the holes for planting your plants. But the common mistake is making holes too large. Because if you make large holes, some weeds can get a chance to grow.
So, when you make holes for your new plants, make small enough holes for your plants.
Number Five: Not Stapling to The Ground
When people installing their landscape fabric, they need to staples it to the ground to secure it to the ground. But some gardeners and homeowners are in a rush to get the job done so fast, and they forgot to staple it down with landscape staples.
To avoid this common mistake, you must always make sure to staple your landscape/weed fabric with landscape staples to secure your landscape or weed barrier fabric with the ground.
Number Six: Adding Too Much Mulch
Adding too much mulch is another mistake. So, don’t just put 6/7 inches of mulch over the landscape or weed barrier fabric. Just keep 2/3 inches of mulch over the landscape fabric.
Conclusion:
Hope this how to lay landscape fabric content will help you to lay your landscape fabric correctly. And also it will help you to avoid some common mistakes that some gardeners and homeowners did. And you’ll get some extra benefits from landscape fabric. Keep well and safe, see you soon!