Hi me & my partner recently moved to a new house & the garden was untouched for about 10 years. The whole garden was full of weeds almost 4ft in most places. After months of hard work i have alone cleared the garden layed new turf & put in some borders for planting shrubs etc etc. As the weeds were so bad ive put liner & woodchip down in the border areas to stop the weeds from growing back. As i have put liner down is it still possible to plant any ground cover as i dont know if the ground cover would be able to spread with the lining down. Any help would be appreciated.
I believe I have read about people using layered newspaper as a liner under mulch, and of course it deteriorates with time. I remember when reading this that yes, the gardener did put some gardening soil on top of the paper and planted perennials. The perennials' roots made their way through the paper in time, as the paper deteriorated. If you replace whatever liner you are using [plastic?] with newspaper, and put it deep enough so you could plant on top of it with good soil around the roots, perhaps that indeed would work. Don't forget to mulch again around the plants. I don't think you can plant on top of a plastic liner or anything like that...
Last time I was home in New Zealand I noticed that the council had used plastic to suppress weeds on the motorway verges, and because they required roots to bind the bank in place they had made small holes in the plastic and planted the shrubs down through the plastic and the mulch that forms underneath from the weeds and then into the soil. Presumably the plants got enough water from run off that came down the hill and not sure how this would work on the flat without some water source but there may be a way around it.
If using newspaper, I've found it best to use 6 layers of the black printed pages and moisten them as I go along so they don't blow away in the wind. There are also biodegradable weed barriers now. Scroll about 2/3 down the page at this first site to 'Planters Landscape Paper' . http://www.snow-pond.com/Weedctrl/weedctrl.html There are others as well. You could do a google for biodegradable weed barrier. http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=2&p=47493&cat=2,2300,33272&ap=1 Newt
Although some types of groundcover will crawl about on top of a liner quite happily, overall you do NOT want landscape fabric or plastic liner under your beds. And the council in NZ made a bad decision to use it. It's true that roots won't thrive there, not only because of lack of water but also lack of air. As a barrier it is only temporary at best because new weed seeds will blow in and grow in whatever organic material settles on top of the liner. Newspaper or other biodegradable product would be far superior. It may have been necessary to get a handhold on what sounds like a huge job, but is not a good long term solution.
I agree about not using plastic liner or other weed barrier to plant in. Weed barriers can create favourable conditions for tough weeds such as horsetail. Are the garden beds free of weeds, roots and all? If the weeds are really that bad I think it would make more sense to get the weeds undercontrol first. Weeding around your new groundcover plants would be difficult and discouraging. You lay some black plastic down for a couple of months during the summer to kill the weeds and seeds with heat. Then it might be safe to plant. Or you could build some raised garden beds and bring in some clean weed free soil. Good Luck!
