Ground cover

I want to put down some bark in the front yard and am wondering which ground cover is best. Ive seen it in fabric or plastic ????
A neighbor did this and he's already showing weeds growing on top of it, not underneath.
I do plan on spraying some Paramitol 25e beforehand . I here this stuff wipes out any weeds for years.

We used the big roll of fabric from Costco, I did not pre-treat the area but we did pull most of the weeds. After laying the fabric we covered with a heavy layer of black wood chips. Occasionally a weed would creep out from under the gap between the fabric and the curbing but otherwise it worked well.

We have since moved and when I do it again I will use the fabric but instead of mulch we'll use rock. We get some decent wind and I hated trying to pick wood chips out of the grass.

Have you used Preen? For any areas you do not want to cover with fabric you simply pull all existing weeds and then sprinkle these miracle granules and they prevent weeds from germinating. It is great stuff. There are several formulas, I use the Preen with plant food since the area has roses and other flowers in it.

Also, I've used Ortho Ground Clear and it will wipe out EVERYTHING.

I used 20 year Dewitt weed barrier for a few spots on my backyard that I covered in 4+ inches of pea gravel. I didn't use staple to secure it down and it has worked pretty awesome. I have had a few weeds pop up but they have grown above the barrier, not through it, and come out very easy since the roots are in the gravel and not the dirt. It has been in for probably 4 or 5 years. There are different grades they dewitt sells but I really didn't mind paying more because I didn't want to have a bad experience with it and have to re-do it. Moving that much pea gravel would be a huge pain.

Amazon Link

The pramitol will render the soil sterile, so keep that in mind if you want anything to grow near it.

I have weed block and crushed rock in my swale and side drive. The weeds will still grow, but they grow in the dust between the rocks and they are easy to pull up if you don't wait too long.

The best long term solution I found was rock salt. Tons of rock salt. It will burn everything that tries to grow, and prevent most everything from rooting as it saturates the soil when watered. It will take a few years to become too diluted by the rain to where it is no longer effective. Just like the pramitol, be careful of the drainage.

My land scaper said not to use a weed barrier cloth under bark mulch. The munch will decompose fertilizing the soil. With the cloth it gets nasty as it breaks down. With rock use a weed fabric

Concrete

Jay5.9L said:

My land scaper said not to use a weed barrier cloth under bark mulch. The munch will decompose fertilizing the soil. With the cloth it gets nasty as it breaks down. With rock use a weed fabric

Click to expand...

Interesting.
I probably just read 50 different threads on "to use weed barrier or not".
Some who decide not to use it are the hardcore (pulling weeds by hand everyday) kind of people. I am not. Id like the area to look good without giving it everyday attention. Maybe spray some weed killer every few months.

ModStock said:

Interesting.
I probably just read 50 different threads on "to use weed barrier or not".
Some who decide not to use it are the hardcore (pulling weeds by hand everyday) kind of people. I am not. Id like the area to look good without giving it everyday attention. Maybe spray some weed killer every few months.

Click to expand...

It's faster, cheaper, and more effective to just pull the weeds after the weed block and rocks are down. They will literally grow in the dust that settles in the rocks.

So another thing to consider is why you want to put down bark. Do you have bushes or other stuff you want to add the bark to or is this just an area that doesn't have anything there now and you just want to make it pretty? Are there sprinklers there now? If the point is to hide dirt and discourage weeds and there is water there now maybe consider planting ground cover. If you get the right thing for your yard after a season or two it will come in thick and crowd out the weeds. After the initial prep and planting it shouldn't take much maintenance and I think a growing ground cover looks better than a lot of the bark or rocks that I see.

Just something to think about.

DesNews article on ground covers -RIP Larry Sagers