I've only used it when I had an area I wasn't going to use and wanted to stop the weed growth. Unless you purchase very heavy duty stuff it starts to break up within a year and becomes a ******** nuisance.
This is all very interesting I was planning to use it on the allotment thinking rotavate, cardboard, mulch then membrane over the winter/ early spring then plant into holes cut into it. We have a lot of invasive weeds and tree seedlings I am at my wits end!!
This is all very interesting I was planning to use it on the allotment thinking rotavate, cardboard, mulch then membrane over the winter/ early spring then plant into holes cut into it. We have a lot of invasive weeds and tree seedlings I am at my wits end!!
@debs64 Don't rotavate!! You'll make it much worse. Best bet is a sheet of black plastic (the thick stuff they sell as DPM in builders' merchants). Cover the area, weight it down thoroughly. Leave it at least 6 months. It won't kill mares tail or bindweed but it'll see off the tree seedlings and quite a lot of other stuff, it'll dry the soil out so the skinny white weeds you get left with are fairly easy to pull up. Then you'll have to 'spot treat' (by your preferred method) the really pernicious ones that are left. I would suggest doing a fairly small area at a time: sheet it, leave it, lift it and move the sheet to the next section. Dig over (don't rotavate) the area when you lift the sheet and get out all the weeds you can find, mulch it and plant it up.
To the OP - the thick weave stuff is fine if you're using it as a path (i.e. not covered with any mulch) as you'll see in nurseries and garden centres. Under an undisturbed area (like Lyn's drive) with a deep covering of something like gravel seems to work well. But I'm another who's tried it in borders as a weed control with shrubs planted through it and would say never again.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
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It's polypropylene, so it's still basically "plastic"
1. Horse manure
2.Green manure Plants....https://www.sowseeds.co.uk/collections/green-manure-seeds
3.Membrane.
I can then monitor which is better each season.
"What gets measured gets done "
To the OP - the thick weave stuff is fine if you're using it as a path (i.e. not covered with any mulch) as you'll see in nurseries and garden centres. Under an undisturbed area (like Lyn's drive) with a deep covering of something like gravel seems to work well. But I'm another who's tried it in borders as a weed control with shrubs planted through it and would say never again.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”