One gardener recently took to Reddit looking for advice after observing that their hydrangeas were "not doing so hot." The accompanying photos they posted revealed one potential source of the problem: landscaping fabric.
"Planted these about 2 months ago … suddenly over the last 3 weeks they have become horribly brown and leaves are dying," the poster wrote. "They perk up a lot after watering but quickly go back to this state."
One commenter was quick to lay out why landscaping fabric was not the way to go with these hydrangeas, giving a detailed and harrowing explanation of what the material will do over time.
"[Landscaping fabric will] work for a season to kill the weeds underneath, yes. But by next season the mulch on top will have started to rot and turn into dirt, so weeds just seed themselves in there and then it's useless," they wrote. "... The ground underneath gets harder and harder, healthy insects and bacteria can't (won't) go underneath, and the soil more or less 'dies.' … Eventually you'll try to take the landscape fabric up, but it'll have a few inches of soil on top making it super heavy. Weeds will have dug their roots through, too, so they make it even harder to get up. And when you finally DO get it up, you'll have to do a ton of work to make the soil underneath it healthy again."
Another agreed. "You'll regret that landscape fabric," they wrote. "Literally everyone I've ever known that put it down regretted it within a year or two. If you're trying to eliminate weeds, you'll do a lot better with brown shipping cardboard (like from Amazon) and just mulch on top of it. I know you've already invested some time and money so I wish I'd seen it sooner, but please trust me on this one!"
Other experienced gardeners have also warned against using landscaping fabric, which is marketed as an easy way to control weed growth but actually — for all the reasons listed above — creates many more problems than it solves. Various subreddits are filled with people sharing their terrible experiences with it, particularly after purchasing a home and encountering the mistakes of the previous homeowner.
In addition, landscaping fabric is made of plastic and will release microplastics into the soil as long as it stays buried.
Luckily, it looks like the hydrangea gardener used a small amount of landscaping fabric recently enough that removing it shouldn't be too much of an ordeal — so long as they are wise enough to take the advice from the commenters. Hopefully, their post can also serve as a warning to other home gardeners who can avoid making the same mistake.
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