Landscaping fabric is marketed to make your life easier, but as one landscape designer showed on TikTok, it can actually make your life more difficult.
TikTokers were grateful for the gardener's example and also wanted to know what alternatives they could use.
JennieGardens (@texasgardening) shared an issue one of her clients had with landscaping fabric at the base of a tree.
@texasgardening Replying to @alli.buckner here's a look at the effect landscape fabric will have on an oak tree's roots. These are live oak roots trying to find air and water. #texasgardening #centraltexasgardener #gardening101 #landscape #landscapedesign #weeding #austin #texas ♬ original sound - JennieGardens
She said, "It was literally suffocating the oak tree."
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She removed the fabric after it had been in place for many years. Every year, a lawn maintenance company came to top it off with mulch, which piled high over the fabric.
JennieGardens said, "Air and water could not get down."
She showed a mass of roots, which she said happens when roots are "looking for a way out of the landscape fabric."
The landscape designer added that fabric is terrible everywhere, especially for trees.
If you've already bought landscape fabric, she suggested you return it.
One TikToker asked if cardboard and compost could be an acceptable alternative to the fabric.
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Mowing the lawn 🏡 According to GreenPal, landscape fabric isn't biodegradable and contains chemicals. It does suggest cardboard as an alternative, as well as newspaper, wood chips, and mulch.
Cardboard is biodegradable. Great Garden Plants noted it's "100% biodegradable and can help with sustainable gardening at home."
Using cardboard is also cheaper than fabric, as the latter tends to be expensive.
While upgrading to a natural lawn can be a lot of work upfront, it can save you money in the long run. Since a natural lawn requires less water, you can save $225 annually. It also requires fewer fertilizers and pesticides, so you can save $100 a year.
You have many options to choose from, including a clover lawn, which is inexpensive. Certain clover varieties also bloom, which is great for attracting pollinators such as bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.
Pollinators are essential for the ecosystem because they hop from plant to plant, pollinating them and enabling them to reproduce.
Pollinators are also essential for food production. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 80% of the 1,400 crops grown globally for food and plant-based products require pollination.
JennieGardens' client wasn't the only one having problems with landscape fabric. Other users also shared their concerns.
One TikToker said, "I hate that stuff. My soil is ruined where the old neighbors used it."
Another user commented, "Started trying to get mine up yesterday and it's so entangled."
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