landscape fabric and rock gardens

by jaime

We just put in a shade garden. I am concerned because my husband fist put down landscape fabric, then covered it with pea gravel. He said we can add the plants later. I wanted to amend the soil w/ peat moss first. Any ideas ?? THANKS jme


Doug says that I'm sorry to have to tell you this but if you want to garden in there, that landscape fabric is a mistake. You can indeed grow some plants in a gravel mix but they tend to like to get their roots down into the soil (fabric stops this).

If you think it's going to stop weeds, then I hate to be the first to tell you that pea gravel is an ideal weed germinating medium and you'll have all the weeds you need from blown in seed germinate in there nicely. (been there done that with the pea gravel)

The *only* place landscape fabric has in the garden is underneath shrubs and trees where you do not want to install any other plants.

Sorry - but you've created a headache you're going to regret *if* you want to garden on it. If you just want to have a gravel "look" then you're fine, you can kill anything that grows.

Good luck