Depending on the money you can spend, espec. ordering from the states, I'd strongly suggest you purchase
the spin-out bag material, by the bolt. You can find a link at the Hosta Library to get in touch with the guy who sells it.

I fear, that eventually, those roots will find their way through any other kind of fabric. The spin-out fabric is coated with something (?) that roots are repelled by! I normally know what that is, but--haven't had my full cup of coffee yet this a.m.!

Good luck with what you decide to do!! :o) And do take pix and post them here--we LOVE progress reports via pix!

It might depend on the strength of the landscape fabric. I did not use it under raised beds, but under my compost bins to keep out tree roots. I used a 10-year landscape fabric under 1 sqft pavers, but the tree roots went through the fabric and the cracks between the pavers. Probably mice would do that too. Against mice you would need hardware cloth I believe.
Bernd

Link below to don_r post about trees and garden beds. About 1/3 way down in discussion.

Paul

Here is a link that might be useful: You Can Have a Tree-mendous Garden!

Ok, here's the deal.... water really doesn't penetrate that fabric the way you'd hope. Try pouring water on a piece and you'll see it sheet off.

Also, roots can and WILL penetrate regular landscape fabric. I know this from experience ripping out the previous owners mistakes.

I agree with Janice, if you intend to do a raised bed on top of maple roots, invest in the SpinOut fabric. It's quite a bit more expensive, so it might be more cost effective to just buy SpinOut bags.

Here is a link that might be useful: Root Control Membran

Thank you all for the replies. Ordering the SpinOut fabric is out of question - the shipping would be much more expensive than fabric itself. In the link recommended by Paul Don is advising to use landscape fabric for making raised beds. Basically my idea is to make a large container size of 2-3 bathtubs. I tried to water my fabric and it drains easily as soon as it gets wet. It's pretty dense fabric made to prevent root invasion into underground pipelines. So I'll give it a try and will put double layer.

The project is complete. We'll see how long it will last. The following varieties are planted now in this bed:

Slim and Trim
Little Red Rooster
Tick Tock
Pandora's Box
Lakeside Down Sized
Lakeside Miss Muffett
Marrakech
Little Treasure
Ripple Effect
Rainbow's End
Valley's Glacier
Raspberry Sorbet
Surprised by Joy

I still got a spot for 2 more minis or dwarfs there. May be some of you can recommend some nice minis to add to this bed?

"And do take pix and post them here--we LOVE progress reports via pix!"

hej_j, I took the pictures and here is the link to them.

Here is a link that might be useful: New hosta bed

My mini Cracker Crumbs is still doing great after this intense heat as is Blue Mouse Ears that you might consider.
Cher

It looks really nice! I love the rock border.

I am very happy with the "Mouse" hostas and any relative of theirs like Pure Heart.

chris

You might be ok with the minis and dwarfs planted in there, maybe not any bigger ones. Just watch them each year and if you see any decline you know it's not working and you move them and next time just use some big containers in that area like barrels or something. Good luck.
Cher

Thanks for suggestions, Chris and Cher. I was not planning to plant any bigger ones there, and this bed was built as a sort of large container for smalls and minis. I already have Cracker Crumbs and several "Mice" in my other minihosta bed. Perhaps, I should have mentioned what I already have in my garden before asking for more suggestions. I guess it's would be off topic here so I better open a new topic with question about minis.

Hello everyone!

Here comes an update of the raised bed for mini hosta that I made last summer with all great help from the forum. That's how it looked on May 21 this spring.

All minis survived the winter and show good new growth. The soil in the bed is soft and fluffy as a down, I don't need to use instruments to plant something in it. So no maple roots so far. More photos coming as the season progresses.

Lovely, look forward to seeing the progression

We discovered, many years ago, that Red Pine trees are ALMOST as bad as Maple trees as regards surface feeding root strangulation of Hostas.

Some Hostas are O.K. but several are not with this competition.

After years of experimentation, we found that two possible methods work.

One is to plant the Hosta in a big-a**ed pot buried. Mostly, though, we use the hole lined with COMMERCIAL-GRADE weed barrier cloth, the stuff that's more expensive than the 'plastic' sort of stuff, that looks and feels more like thin fibreglass.

With over 1500 Hostas in this around 2 acre garden, we're still fighting it. As we notice 'diminishing' plants we dig them out and line the hole.

In general, the bigger the plant we place the less problem we see.

Back in 'the day' we bought those darn little 'liners' and lost way too many.

thoughts,

hh

Hi. New to gardening and am building a raised bed. I am using 4 x 4 cedar timbers and will go 3 high. This will make my bed just a bit more than 10 inches deep. My question is would it be a good idea to line the bottom and sides of my bed with landscape fabric before adding my dirt?

Landscape fabric is the devil's spawn in my opinion. It doesn't prevent weeds and it doesn't drain properly. Roots go right through it and weed seeds plant in the soil and mulch above it. I'm still pulling pieces out from underneath my dogwood that the previous owners of my property installed many years ago.

Atlas, why would you want to line your raised bed? Are you expecting root invasion?

Steve

If you have a raised bed... I wouldn't worry much about root invasion. And if you were wanting a barrier and your bed was raised 10 inches... you could put sheet metal in the bottom and drill small holes in it for draining. People plant in containers right? Landscape fabric is just kinda messy when people put it at the surface... right under the mulch and try to plant through it. But I wouldn't think it would cause many problems burried deep. I wouldn't think it would be a good deterent for maple roots though.. I have roots out 20ft from my 40 foot tall water maple that are 3 inches in diameter and easily break through plastic edging lol... I dug up around my edging... sawed all the roots off and put sheet metal around... burried out of site lol...
Good Luck.. some of us have to plant around our maples... theres no way in hell I'm cutting down my shade =P
John

A lot of folks lay down many layers of newspapers before they put the soil in the raised beds. It helps keep down the weeds, and I really like the idea.