Weed Barrier for Gardens and Fences

Do not use a weed-whacker near your fencing. Instead, keep weeds from growing into the fence by laying an 18-inch strip of this polyfilm weed barrier under the fence before you install it and covering the film with an inch or so of wood chips or pine bark mulch.

This polyfilm weed barrier is much better than the landscape cloth sold at garden centers because, unlike the landscape cloth, it lasts a long time. That’s why farmers use it, rather than landscape cloth, to keep down weeds. It’s true that the polyfilm will not allow moisture to pass through (unless you poke it with a knife every foot or two). However, the landscape cloth is such fragile stuff that it will last only a short time, after which the installer will have scant inclination to go through all the motions needed to replace it from under the bark mulch and the fence.