I wouldn't do it! Plants are healthiest when the soil is alive with organisms and healthy. Healthy soil is created by top-dressing every year with compost or mulch and letting the worms till it in. If you put down landscape fabric you're stopping this from happening. In addition, landscape fabric inhibits oxygen exchange which hurts soil organisms. And eventually the fabric starts to fall apart and doesn't even stop weeds from growing.

It's a nightmare to remove if you ever change your mind and it's begun to break down, it's not eco friendly, it doesn't do a good job of stopping weeds, etc etc.

Thank you for your input, summercloud. My instincts guide me toward a no regarding landscape fabric, however, the weeds!! Thusfar, the only thing I have seen that helps to provide some kind of weed control is a 3-4” layer of mulch, which can bring other issues (spiders and other bugs).

Don't do it! We put it down and I've regretted it. The weeds still grow, they are just harder to remove. Every time you plant anything you have to fight with the fabric. I wouldn't put it back by your trees & shrubs either, it's just a mess. Aside from the mechanical issues, as Summercloud pointed out, it will mess up your soil health too.

If you want to make a smother layer, don't use landscape fabric. Use cardboard. It breaks down after a while, but you don't have to pick the scraps out later. Still lay on a good layer of mulch over that.

Since you are already using rock mulch in part of the bed, why not use it all the way through the bed? You don't have to switch over to a different kind of mulch if you don't want to. If you do want to switch over, you can use wood chip, bark chunk, compost, pine straw, a different grade/color of stone, and a handful of other things if you want. What kind of other mulch did you have in mind?

Here is the biggest pain of having landscape fabric. Every time that you want to add another plant it is a bear to cut that fabric.

To protect large areas against weeds I plant lots of ground cover like alysum.

Not just weeds, but Bermuda growing through landscape fabric is right behind Trumpet Vine on the list of The Biggest Landscaping Nightmares in Texas. It is impossible to dig it out of fabric. I promise you, Bermuda will take it as a fun challenge and laugh and laugh wickedly as it takes over. I’d rather deal with any weed over Bermuda.

I would lasagna garden it. Newspapers, cardboard, etc. It won’t stop everything, this is Texas, but it’ll be easier to deal with.

What Dingo said - it just makes the weeds harder to remove. Inches of mulch much better, or some sort of ground cover which will out compete the weeds. I would let the trees and bushes add their dropped leaves to the soil too, instead of putting down gravel. IMO "spiders and other bugs" are a GOOD thing, as are worms, soil organisms, etc. We put in landscape fabric in a 6' by 40' bed years ago, and it caused nothing but trouble. We have regretted it ever since.

Jackie

I just watched this video yesterday in which Linda Chalker-Scott, a Washington State University Extension urban horticulturist, duscusses the merits if different mulching materials. I highly recommend giving it a watch for her discussion of landscape fabrics.

https://youtu.be/NXL9n2KNm1E

It seems that ALL Of the landscaping companies I have received estimates from are suggesting ”commercial grade” landscape fabric. I have not used landscape fabric other than a 3’ strip of non-commercial landscape fabric as a temporary application near a planting bed in our front yard. I have already developed a healthy level of cynicism regarding some of the advice received from landscapers when it relates to growing of healthy and appropriate plants. Often, some of their suggestions are contrary to that provided by university and cooperative extension etc. experts. I think for now, I am going to pass on adding landscape fabric.

Speaking as an ecologist and from personal observation: no, no, no, and no! While there is some marginal value in using landscape fabric to keep rock groundcovers from sinking immediately down into the soil, there are few other short-term pluses and a number of long-term negatives.

First and foremost, there are important interactions that take place between soil surface, where plant detritus and other organic matter is deposited and decomposes, the air, and biota critical to garden health that live within the soil (like earthworms, for example, but also a zillion others too numerous to mention). At best landscape fabric interferes with them (like not allowing decomposing biomass to return to and enrich the soil); over time, after the fabric gets clogged up with non-degradable detritus, critical resources like oxygen, water, and decomposing organic matter may all get cut off, making the ground underneath the fabric virtually a dead zone. So, sure, maybe there will be little islands of open ground around the plants themselves, for whatever use that may be (like for pouring on synthetic fertilizers that wouldn't even be needed much if organic matter dropped by the plants were allowed to remain and decompose naturally), but the life dynamics that maintains the health of all the rest of the soil in the bed will be greatly hampered and maybe as dead as, say, your livingroom floor. (Which seems to be how so many people these days view and maintain their yards, as if they should literally be like the interiors of their houses. Every scrap of plant material is swept, mown, and blown away, leaving a desert-like expanse that is of no use to wildlife or, even, the plants planted there. Everything "perfectly" clean and in place. Really breaks my heart sometimes.)

Next, despite the myth, landscape fabric does not keep weeds from growing. Any invasive tree root worth its name will easily punch through the fabric (heck, I've even seen them punch through asphalt and cement). Dust that settles on top of and into the fabric can support quite a diversity of weeds in just a few years' time.

The previous owners of our house installed landscape fabric in a number of places and one of the first things I did when we moved in 20 years ago was to rip it all out (with gritted teeth and more than a few bad words).

Lynn-in-TX-Z8b- Austin Area/Hill Country: "Thusfar, the only thing I have seen that helps to provide some kind of weed control is a 3-4” layer of mulch, which can bring other issues (spiders and other bugs)."

Those are features, Lynn, not "bugs" (I couldn't resist...)

It is settled… no landscaping fabric. Thank you all for the input. I am actually seriously re-thinking the landscape fabric for the tree area with river rock/ river gravel that is scheduled for installation Monday.

I wonder why so many landscapers support the use of landscape fabric… profit margin, lack of knowledge… both?

Catspa- HA! Lol - “Those are features, Lynn, not "bugs" (I couldn't resist...)”

I think in part landscape fabric is popular becuase it's easy. Easy to use, easy to set it and forget it. Looks great quick for finished product. Then walk away and later it can be the homeowners headache. Then needing another landscaping. Or to keep the landscaper on in regular maintaining to keep their job good.

I might not have a popular opinion with this, but landscape fabric can work- if it's rather highly maintained and anticipated of replacements. If an area is really prepped first too. It's why it can work well in more public/commercial areas where there is a lot of maintaining and such. It's also why it so often is a fail in the more home use with the way it's usually used.

You could also check into actual 100 natural fabric for landscaping fabric. While the landscaping stuff is bad, the natural stuff isn't so much. To warn you, it can be mighty hard to find heavy weight natural fabric that is untreated and on a price point for landscaping. If you have a fabric outlet handy, check them out. You might find a few bolts of hideous heavy cotton. Take it to the laundry mat and wash it a couple times. Just wash, no need to dry. Take it home and stake it out wet in place. Let dry then heap the mulches on. You can do this if you find a stack of cotton sheets at a yard sale or thrift shop too.

It is easy, Lynn, and they charge for it however horrible it is when they are done for the homeowners. So glad you are skipping that. Some landscapers are more concerned with plant and soil health I am sure and would not recommend the fabric.

Hey Lynn you might want to re think the river rock too. It's a b**** to weed around or plant anything, and with you being in TX I'm guessing it's hot & a lot of that heat will reflect back up on your plants.

Will your river rock and gravel prevent all weed growth?

I ask because: if not, rock/gravel and weeds is not fun (except for the weeds).

Though bugs and spiders sound scary.

Cardboard under anything will help that rifis regarding weed suppression.

My mother was just quoted $2000 to have her landscape fabric removed, vast bermuda grass network underneath it dug out, and re-mulch. So Lynn, you’re already ahead by not choosing it!

Another big NO on the fabric from a former Texan, Lynn! In my opinion, it’s a bunch of landscaper’s hooey 99% of the time. And as Ben noted, it WILL need to be completely removed and painfully disposed of in a landfill in time…after pecan trees and weeds have rooted right through it, etc. The trees tear it, and the weeds set in. And then there’s the shifting soil of TX (sung to the tune of The Yellow Rose of TX) and the flash flooding. It sounds like you are already leaning away from the fabric, but I wanted to chime in and give you a high five for leaning in that direction. Carol

Me, too! Landscape fabric is the worst.

I don't like organic matter next to my house because it can draw insects into the house and it also prevents the house from drying out. So I put down thick plastic sheets and cover with rocks or stepping stones for roughly the first 2 feet around the house. Thick plastic works way better than landscaping fabric if your goal is to prevent weeds. This is an area where I want nothing to grow. If your goal is to surround plants with something to hinder weeds, mulch by itself is the best choice. I like shredded hardwood the best,

I'm in Maryland. Our summers are humid and we get occasional droughts, but nothing like CA. Thankfully wild fires are very rare.