Flower Bed Weed Prevention with a Plastic Liner

Just like a plastic liner

• Landscape fabric is a plasticized membrane that allows airflow, water and nutrients to interact with the soil, yet blocks weed growth from taking over your garden. The best quality fabric is thick and tough, and as a general rule for a quality test, you should not be able to rip or tear good landscape fabric with your bare hands.

How to use it

• Lay out the landscape fabric first over your bare garden soil. In places where two pieces meet, overlap the fabric to make sure weeds don't find a way to get sunlight. Allow a good three to six inches of overlapping material to prevent this.

  Always cover your fabric with mulch, lava stones or other kinds of ground cover. Never allow direct sunlight to contact the fabric, as the UV rays will deteriorate its weed-blocking capacity, making it brittle and causing it to fail. If you keep landscape fabric covered from direct sunlight year after year, it has the potential to last the life of your garden.

Planting

• Once you lay down the fabric and position it properly, determine where your plants should go. With a sharp knife, cut an X through the fabric just wide enough to put your plant in the ground. Any more room than that might encourage rogue weed growth through the excess hole. Make sure the X area surrounding the plant is heavily mulched, and then water and fertilize as you would normally.