Landscaping fabric in not only not necessary, but a pain in the neck! Its use has dwindled dramatically over the years, as people have discovered that it causes more problems than it has been advertised to solve.

Necessary? No, not at all. Use of it may give you more weed control and/or some soil warming effect. It may also keep your mulch from decomposing as quickly which may or may not be a good thing depending on what your goal/purpose is? More details would be helpful. ;)

Dave

wow! thanks for the quick replies yall! hehe,.. I suppose I should've given a little more info too, so sorry about that. Me and my dad are using the pine straw for mulch around trees and in flower beds for the first time. It's not too commonly used here in southern Ohio, and we found some at a local nursery. I've heard good thing about it, so I talked dad into getting it. He mentioned that it seems like that black fabric stuff shows through easier with the pine straw than with regular mulch. So, I told him I would check on here and see if you guys think we even need the fabric layed down. Personally, I don't like it either. I'm glad it seems that we don't need it, and me and him can save some money by not buying it for our landscaping! Thanks so much!

What a good landscape fabric can do is allow you to put less mulch material down, but there still needs to be 3 to 4 inches of mulch on top of the fabric. Far too many times I see people plunk down the fabric and put maybe 1/2 inch of mulch on top and then try to tell me mulches do not help control "weeds". If you can see the fabric you do not have enough mulch over it.
That said a goodly amount of mulch will do the same thing without the fabric, or even better than landscape fabric would be newspaper.

Ok thanks kimmsr. I was also wondering, do weeds generally grow through easier on the first application of pine straw?... It seems that weeds could find the soil easier when the straw is just put down and it's fluffy.

andy if the area is weedy, then you can put down newspaper first underneath the straw to smother the weeds. I find generally with straw that the weeds dont have an easy time getting through it, as long as it is thick enough. that fluffiness is an advantage, because it is usually enough to block the sun enough to stop germination of weed seeds from the soil. If you plan on using it thinly, then some sheets of newpaper would give you a good barrier underneath.

If the mulch you put down is dense enough, thick enough, you will deprive any weeds the access to the sun they need to grow and they will die. I have areas with 4 inches of pine straw that have no "weeds" growing because that mulch is so dense they cannot get the needed sunlight.

Ok thanks so much. You guys have been very helpful!

I just ordered pine needle straw/mulch, I plan on putting it under my apple trees and blueberry bushes. Before I put the pine needles down should I lay down cardboard first and then put the pine needles on top of that? I also have a roll of brown paper, would that work better then the cardboard?

You only need to layer paper or cardboard under the mulch if there is an existing weed issue. Otherwise, the pine straw can be laid as-is. btw, pine straw is generally laid thicker than bark-based mulches.

I'm pulling up English ivy in my front yard. Was going to put landscape fabric down to prevent the ivy from coming back. Would it be better to use newspaper under the mulch instead of fabric?

The ONLY thing that will stop ivy from returning is to remove all the roots. Or pave it over with concrete :-) Seriously, neither landscape fabric nor cardboard or newspaper will have any effect on the ivy unless every bit of root is removed.

Well, we all know that's impossible. What's my best option?

Just use a mulch to cover the area. And then when any bit of ivy shows above the mulch surface, cut it off. If you keep removing any topgrowth as soon as you see it, the plant will be unable to photosynthesize and will eventually die off. It is not a fast process but it does work. And I live in the PNW where English ivy is a horribly invasive species and is planted everywhere!!

But do try to remove as much of the root system as possible first.

Thank you so much! Our whole front yard was covered in it! Couldn't keep the weeds out. Your suggestion is exactly what I'm going to do.