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Mulching and weed prevention?

I'm creating a flower garden and was planning on just using mulch for weed prevention. My husband thinks we have to use the fabric stuff plus mulch. who is right? I think just the mulch itself should do the trick.

Public Comments

1. no matter what, the only thing to do that works is to DAILY pull the weeds out. you can't prevent them from growing.
2. The fabric keeps the seeds that are under it from growing. The seeds that get deposited on top of it after it is installed will germinate and grow. Same with mulch, seeds on top of the mulch will germinate and grow. The only thing that works is to pull the weeds.
3. In my personal experience, the fabrik creates more problems than it solves. Mulch breaks down and becomes top soil... Neat! When it breaks down on top of that barrier, it doesn't do the garden plants much good... then, the weeds come up in the new soil, above the fabrik... and they are practically impossible to pull, when they send their roots through the "barrier" or even worse, grow up through the fabrik... Eventually the people I work for come around to my point of view, and agree to me pulling that junk out of the beds... What kind of weeds do you have? There are some southern weeds that can not be beaten with anything.... If you have nut sedge, rattlesnake weed, johnson grass, or bermuda, nothing you do will ever allow you to garden that location... I just throw a sheet of plastic down, and then an old carpet on top of the plastic... over those weeds, and cover the carpet with mulch, and garden in containers.
4. Yea, just get out there and pull the weeds. there are no commercial things that work.