A gardener warned his social media followers against the use of landscape fabric, calling its use "perhaps the biggest mistake I've ever made."
In a popular video, Instagrammer Paul Avellino (@avellinofarms), also known as The Garden Guinea, pulls up "a mess" of landscape fabric from underneath soil, leaves, and weeds.
Avellino said he thought the fabric would be "a dream solution" to protect against weeds and promote growth in a flowerbed. The truth, however, was vastly different.
"Instead of preventing weeds, landscape fabric became a haven for them," Avellino wrote. "Seeds found their way and sprouted on top, and once they took root, they were nearly impossible to remove without tearing the fabric."
Avellino added that the fabric hindered the soil's drainage and aeration, leading plants to suffer. And when he decided to remove the fabric, that was also a difficult chore, with many remnants left behind.
This is just the latest example on social media of gardeners regretting their use of landscape fabric. Whether it's on Instagram, Reddit or TikTok, it's hard to look at landscaping advice online without coming across advice against the material.
As the University of Illinois Extension notes, even if landscape fabric does suppress weeds, that only happens for a brief period of time before the material stops working. And since it's usually made out of plastic, landscape fabric leaches toxins into soil and leaves microplastics behind when it eventually gets pulled up.
All those issues can pose serious problems, especially for gardeners who are trying to do the right thing by rewilding their yard or going to a garden full of environmentally friendly native plants.
Many users said they, too, had experienced difficulty with landscape fabric.
"Boy, do I sympathize," one commenter wrote. "Took a season and a half to remove my 'quick solution.'"
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Making it look better 🌱 Others asked for advice on what to use instead. Avellino noted he learned a valuable lesson from this experience and offered several eco-friendly alternatives.
"I will now embrace organic mulches, cover crops, and regular soil amendments to foster a healthy, thriving garden ecosystem," he said.
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