flower bed

[cjm2783]

I have a project at a local school and needed some advice. There's a flower bed, 90'x 3'. It has landscape fabric on the bottom and timbers as a border. It was installed this time last year.
It's almost covered with weeds now. What should I do. spray round-up and till it, then add more dirt to it or what.

Also how much area does one pine bale cover. i have the front is 837 sqft... not sure how that works.

thanks,

cjm

[Hawk83]

Sounds like a good start to me, man. Thats wut i'd do, clear it out, then get some fresh material in there b4 i went ahead and replanted or wutever the customer wanted to do with it.. good luck man
Hawk

[Candibear]

I would rip up the landscape fabric first, then pull as much of the weeds and dead plant material out that I possibly could. Next I would spray the round up on a Friday evening, because you said it was at a school and you don't want any of the kids getting sick from the round up that you sprayed. If there is a playground that people use on the weekends I would also put a sign up letting people know that you have sprayed the chemical so they can take the proper precautions. If you need to add more soil do so, then fabric and landscape the bed to the customers needs. Make sure to offer a maintaince program for every two weeks minimum so it won't need to be redone again.
Good Luck with this I've done these jobs many times and they can be a pain.

[RRS]

Do you know if there were any plants installed in the bed? It would be a shame to kill off a bunch of nice perennials and start all over again only a year later. Unless that's what the customer wants of course. Possibly just a good hand weeding, nice thick layer of new mulch, and a maintenance program to keep it from getting out of hand again. Just a thought.

All to often people think that fabric is going to keep them from having to perform regular maintenance. Bottom line is...if you're going to have gardens they're going to have to be maintained by someone. There's no way around it.

[CK-1]

I've been using fabric for the last two years its works pretty good. I think some of the brands may decompose quickly than others though. I agree, regular maintenance will still need to be done to freshen up the flowerbeds and edging. Why use Round Up and Fabric?...

[Candibear]

The only reason I would consider Round Up with the fabric is because Where I am the plants are dormant and appear to be "dead" the seeds have dropped and will "pop". Round Up will not have any affect on the seeds as they only kill when they have touched the green part of a plant, since it is only a contact herbicide. There for if you lay down fabric as well as using Round Up the seeds will not have 1/2 a chance, and I agree some of the cheaper brands of fabric do decompose faster.

[CK-1]

The purpose of landscaping fabric is to provide nutrients to living plant growth, not to weed seeds or other dorment plants. If someone was to workup the soil properly and de-weed the flowerbed, place down fabric correctly, cut approp. holes in fabric for planting/plant, and place down mulch. The use of Round Up will not be needed..

[ohreallythanks]

no fabric for me.....tried it but weeds would still germinate on top of the fabric after time.....i'd rather get paid the man hrs to pull the weeds when necessary.....then you don't worry bout spraying plants that r close to weeds....fert provides the nutrients, not the fabric.....if used.. the fabric must be breathable to allow absorption.......i've seen plenty of jacked up pastic jobs..hahaha...even at a commercial site