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Advice re weedblock and mulch??
We have 3 large beds in front of our house that were probably put in when the house was built in 2001. The original industrial strength weedblock is useless and has become a bedding mat for weeds. All of the beds have some evergreen plantings and some perennials. I may add more perennials over time.
I want to re-do at least one of these beds (i.e., the largest one) this spring. I'm guessing that it is about 20 ft. long. It's probably about 12 ft. deep at most places, so a good sized area. I have no intention of digging up plants, just the groundcover between the plants and possibly adding some perennials.
Here are my questions:
1. Should I remove all of the existing mulch, pull up the weedblock and start over? Or can I just layer on top of what is there and continue cutting holes in the block when I want to plant something?
2. Does anyone have experience with the rubber mulch? I know that it won't breakdown and feed my plants, but is it an effective weedblocker? And has anyone purchased in large/bulk quantities instead of bag by bag? Have you found some other type of mulch that you prefer?
Re: Advice re weedblock and mulch??
1. I'd get rid of it all and start over. Every time I've had weedblock I've gotten rid of it.
2. I've heard that the rubber mulch blows away easily and bleaches easily. I prefer regular wood mulch.
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1. Scrape away the mulch and make a pile of it, pull up the fabric, till up the soil, apply Preen (google), replace mulch and add more as needed. When you pull up the fabric, you'll find your soil completely compacted and hard and zero air getting to it. That fabric's just awful for the soil.
2. Rubber mulch leaches petrochemicals into the soil. Yum. It does also float away in heavy rain like PP mentioned. Regular mulch decomposes over time to enrich your soil. There's an obvious answer here
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are you keeping 2-3" of mulch in your beds? I've not had significant weed issues if I've kept a decent depth of mulch.
And, I don't think rubber mulch is going to solve any problems (and does have leaching issues, is expensive, blows away, etc.).
One of the beds has rocks instead of mulch, which I hate because it is impossible to pull the weeds from between the rocks. But the rocks are heavy and I'm not moving them anytime soon.
The other two beds - I did have about 2" of mulch. I used the free mulch from the county (Fairfax), which may have been my mistake. It's such a large area to cover. I'm looking for places where we could get a bulk mulch delivery for cheap, but no luck yet.
Which is better for weed control - leaf mulch or wood mulch?
I have a bad problem with wild chrysanthemum. It just spreads on runners on top of the mulch we have. I've tried pulling it up by hand, but can't get all of the runners. The local nursery (Merrifield) said that Round-Up is the only thing that will kill the chrysanthemum. We're near a creek and I've read that Round-Up can cause serious problems for frogs and toads, so I'd like to use it as little as possible. Plus, it sprouts right in the middle of my hosta and under my rose and holly bushes.