There are pros and cons to using weed barriers around your landscape and garden. There is nothing more annoying than seeing weeds taking over or choking out the plants you worked so hard to plant. Weeding can be time-consuming and exhausting, especially in the heated days of Summer, bending over for long periods.

Woven weed barriers can reduce the number of weeds, but there are some pros and cons to consider when using this landscape fabric.

Pros
. Holds in Moisture – Weed Barrier helps keep moisture so plants will not quickly evaporate water. Unlike other fabrics, weed barrier material like Sunnydaze is breathable, allowing air, water, and nutrients to pass through to the soil.

. Reduces Weeds – The weed barrier will discourage weeds from growing by blocking any sunshine to the weed’s roots, reducing their potential of choking out your plants.

. Fewer Chemicals – Nothing upsets me more when people say they spray pesticides in their gardens to kill off weeds. Not only is this a quick fix to kill the weeds, but this will also kill many beneficial plants pollinators and spread harsh chemicals onto your food. The weed barrier is more environmentally friendly and can help to eliminate the use of harsh weed-killing pesticides.

. Cost-effective – The weed barrier can last up to a few years and be reused. So unless you would like to add more, you should not have to buy this every year.

Cons
. Once you burn a hole for your plant, it is permanently there -If you like to use crop rotation or have a different design, this is something to consider as you cannot undo where you make a hole in the fabric.

. Soil can lose breathability – This fabric should not be used on your soil as a permanent fix. Especially vegetable gardens and flower gardens, your soil is essential for healthy plants. Good soil needs air, compost, beneficial fungi, and beneficial insects and earthworms to do their job in the soil. Soil can get packed down and damage the roots of plants.

To reduce weeds in your garden, I recommend using a weed barrier to remove unwanted weeds or grass around your garden space, and having any type of grass around your garden with weeds can blow weeds seed into your soil when you mow it, or weed eat it down. The goal is to kill off the grass and weeds around the garden space. The weed barrier is ideal for making paths in your garden to walk on so you are avoiding walking on the soil itself. To do this, first mark out a place for your path, measure and cut out fabric, and secure with landscape staples (Sunnydaze fabric includes these staples with your fabric) and put a stone, mulch, or untreated wood chips on top. This, in turn, will help kill grass and weed seeds from getting into your garden soil. So is Landscape fabric worth the investment as a gardener? I would say no doubt! I use this in my garden with no issues. However, I feed my soil with good compost every year and am actively removing the grass around my garden perimeter and seeing benefits from this eventually I want to do away with using landscape fabric in the garden altogether but still using it to help reduce weeds in places I do not want them to be. The fabric acts like a guardrail to the garden.

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