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Garden Restoration

Laying down black plastic for weed control

18 years ago

My husband and I are away from our London home over the winter and return in the summer to a jungle. Before we leave this time, we have bought some black plastic to put over the back garden in hopes of killing off plant life completely so that we can start over next summer. We'd like any suggestions about how to go about this...can we leave a small area to collect the rain? ..and will it keep everything from growing?

Barb

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Comments (2)

patricianat
18 years ago
Do you want rain and sunlight ot make it grow or do you want to kill off the weeds? There are much better ways to do this but they do require some work but are much better for you and your garden in the long haul.
nwnatural
18 years ago
Yes, you'll kill off lot's of stuff under the plastic. You'll still have to pull up some of the stubborn weeds that have turned albino under the dark cover. The longer you can leave it down (more then a year?) the better. Then heavily amend the soil with compost before you plant.

Word of caution: The plastic doesn't let any water through, so if your killing off weeds, say under a tree or some shrubbery, you may be doing drought damage to those plants as well.

Cheers.
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