Using landscape cloth for building raised bed

12 years ago

To not be off topic in the very interesting thread on 'Newspaper versus landscaping cloth' discussion I will post my question separately.

I'm thinking to use a draining landscaping cloth for building a raised bed for miniature hostas under a large maple tree. With landscaping cloth underneath I would like to prevent maple roots growing into the soil of the bed. The tree is growing on a thin soil layer laying on a solid rock so there is no way to dig there. It's very dry area on a slope, the tree is taking up all water that it can get. Soil is full of fine roots. To go around this problem I decided to build a raised bed instead. What are your thoughts on that situation? Can I use landscape fabric for that or should I go for something else?

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Comments (17)

Janice
12 years ago
Depending on the money you can spend, espec. ordering from the states, I'd strongly suggest you purchase
the spin-out bag material, by the bolt. You can find a link at the Hosta Library to get in touch with the guy who sells it.

I fear, that eventually, those roots will find their way through any other kind of fabric. The spin-out fabric is coated with something (?) that roots are repelled by! I normally know what that is, but--haven't had my full cup of coffee yet this a.m.!

Good luck with what you decide to do!! :o) And do take pix and post them here--we LOVE progress reports via pix!
in ny zone5
12 years ago
It might depend on the strength of the landscape fabric. I did not use it under raised beds, but under my compost bins to keep out tree roots. I used a 10-year landscape fabric under 1 sqft pavers, but the tree roots went through the fabric and the cracks between the pavers. Probably mice would do that too. Against mice you would need hardware cloth I believe.
Bernd
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Thank You Sylvia and Ceth... Glib, I have done Decomposed Granite from the outset, so I don't know any difference, I learned before I built my beds the possibility that it enhances Clayish soils while also contributing to the soil food web, this is my initial take on it and what motivated me to try it, so far ,it has worked splendidly ;-) Decomposed granite is a rock powder and is an excellent amendment for clay soils. All rock powders are great sources of minerals and micronutrients. All growing soils need them. As the microbes and macrobes like earthworms, digest the insoluble minerals, they break down into the various soluble micronutrients that all forms of plants need. For example, limestone rocks are rich in calcium. Granite rocks are rich in potassium, etc. Seaweeds of course are the king of micronutrient fertilizers and soil amendments. There can be up to 70+ trace elements in seaweed. In locations where seaweed is not readily available; rock powders is one answer to the problem. Research continues to reveal that insoluble tiny particles like rock powder minerals, can be easily digested or absorbed via microbial activity, over time, into the anatomy of growing plants, thriving in the presence of rich organic compost. Obviously a heavy clay soil is very difficult to initially dig, whereas a sandy loam is much easier. Heavy clay soils can be improved considerably by adding a lot of sawdust and mason's sand. DO NOT use beach or river sand! Mason's sand, being crushed granite, has sharp edges and actually loosens the soil. One of the least understood aspects of gardening is that of capillary action of the garden soil. It is a proven fact that compressed earth has a better capillary action than undisturbed soil. That is why gardening books tell you never to walk between rows in a regular garden, as that encourages weed growth. And of course people are told never to step in a French Intensive bed and thus compress the soil. But the capillary action is absolutely necessary to bring water up to the roots of growing plants to promote good and deep root growth. In regular garden rows, it is easy to roll a heavy 2 or 3 inch wide weighted wheel (mounted on an axle and handle) down the row directly over the freshly planted seeds, which will then promote deep root growth along that line. The spaces between the rows are than rototilled to eliminate footprints prior to the initial watering. The basic concept of French Intensive gardening is that raised beds are created which have humus added, and the whole bed is light and fluffy to a depth of two feet to promote fantastic root growth. The beds are typically 4 feet wide and 12 or more feet long, with 3 foot paths between the beds.
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Wow, much to think about. The pictures you sent looked a lot better than grass on the slop with a landscaped bed. This approach would really soften up my house much better. Low maintenance is a high priority for me. So I think trying to get away from shrubs is a good plan. I'm just not familiar with plantings at all. I'm still a bit hung up on figuring out what the height of the step down off the porch should be. Now that I understand your yellow/blue lines, it appears from your sketch the dirt line would be every bit of a 24" dropoff with ground cover around 18". This also looks similar to the photos you sent. I was worried this would be too much but assuming you agree with those dimensions, I'm going with it. The picture below gives a bigger picture. Note the patio section we've been discussing is on the right, it's way off to the side of the house (actually the carriage house/inlawsuite that was my grandmother's "retirement home" for 10 years until she passed away. (Don't be confused by the identical section in the middle labeled as Future: Phase 2, I was going to try out this concept on the side of the house with lower grade before attempting it in the middle section.) Here's an image looking out with the red circle on the left showing the area we're discussing. The panorama distorts the middle of the house making it appear as the center of the breeezeway. Because this is off to the side of the carriage house, it's really removed so I wasn't overly concerned about plantings, however, low maintenance is much better. Could you tell me what the purple and pink ground cover are. I'm not the most creative and would like to try to just copy what's in the photo if it works in 7b.
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paul_in_mn
12 years ago
Link below to don_r post about trees and garden beds. About 1/3 way down in discussion.

Paul

Here is a link that might be useful: You Can Have a Tree-mendous Garden!
thisismelissa
12 years ago
Ok, here's the deal.... water really doesn't penetrate that fabric the way you'd hope. Try pouring water on a piece and you'll see it sheet off.

Also, roots can and WILL penetrate regular landscape fabric. I know this from experience ripping out the previous owners mistakes.

I agree with Janice, if you intend to do a raised bed on top of maple roots, invest in the SpinOut fabric. It's quite a bit more expensive, so it might be more cost effective to just buy SpinOut bags.

Here is a link that might be useful: Root Control Membran
swed_hosta
Original Author
12 years ago
Thank you all for the replies. Ordering the SpinOut fabric is out of question - the shipping would be much more expensive than fabric itself. In the link recommended by Paul Don is advising to use landscape fabric for making raised beds. Basically my idea is to make a large container size of 2-3 bathtubs. I tried to water my fabric and it drains easily as soon as it gets wet. It's pretty dense fabric made to prevent root invasion into underground pipelines. So I'll give it a try and will put double layer.
swed_hosta
Original Author
12 years ago
The project is complete. We'll see how long it will last. The following varieties are planted now in this bed:

Slim and Trim
Little Red Rooster
Tick Tock
Pandora's Box
Lakeside Down Sized
Lakeside Miss Muffett
Marrakech
Little Treasure
Ripple Effect
Rainbow's End
Valley's Glacier
Raspberry Sorbet
Surprised by Joy

I still got a spot for 2 more minis or dwarfs there. May be some of you can recommend some nice minis to add to this bed?

"And do take pix and post them here--we LOVE progress reports via pix!"

hej_j, I took the pictures and here is the link to them.

Here is a link that might be useful: New hosta bed
Cher
12 years ago
My mini Cracker Crumbs is still doing great after this intense heat as is Blue Mouse Ears that you might consider.
Cher
chris-e
12 years ago
It looks really nice! I love the rock border.

I am very happy with the "Mouse" hostas and any relative of theirs like Pure Heart.

chris
Cher
12 years ago
You might be ok with the minis and dwarfs planted in there, maybe not any bigger ones. Just watch them each year and if you see any decline you know it's not working and you move them and next time just use some big containers in that area like barrels or something. Good luck.
Cher
swed_hosta
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks for suggestions, Chris and Cher. I was not planning to plant any bigger ones there, and this bed was built as a sort of large container for smalls and minis. I already have Cracker Crumbs and several "Mice" in my other minihosta bed. Perhaps, I should have mentioned what I already have in my garden before asking for more suggestions. I guess it's would be off topic here so I better open a new topic with question about minis.
swed_hosta
Original Author
11 years ago
Hello everyone!

Here comes an update of the raised bed for mini hosta that I made last summer with all great help from the forum. That's how it looked on May 21 this spring.

All minis survived the winter and show good new growth. The soil in the bed is soft and fluffy as a down, I don't need to use instruments to plant something in it. So no maple roots so far. More photos coming as the season progresses.
Jagd51
11 years ago
Lovely, look forward to seeing the progression
hostahillbilly
11 years ago
We discovered, many years ago, that Red Pine trees are ALMOST as bad as Maple trees as regards surface feeding root strangulation of Hostas.

Some Hostas are O.K. but several are not with this competition.

After years of experimentation, we found that two possible methods work.

One is to plant the Hosta in a big-a**ed pot buried. Mostly, though, we use the hole lined with COMMERCIAL-GRADE weed barrier cloth, the stuff that's more expensive than the 'plastic' sort of stuff, that looks and feels more like thin fibreglass.

With over 1500 Hostas in this around 2 acre garden, we're still fighting it. As we notice 'diminishing' plants we dig them out and line the hole.

In general, the bigger the plant we place the less problem we see.

Back in 'the day' we bought those darn little 'liners' and lost way too many.

thoughts,

hh
AtlasPutty4
11 years ago
Hi. New to gardening and am building a raised bed. I am using 4 x 4 cedar timbers and will go 3 high. This will make my bed just a bit more than 10 inches deep. My question is would it be a good idea to line the bottom and sides of my bed with landscape fabric before adding my dirt?
Steve Massachusetts
11 years ago
Landscape fabric is the devil's spawn in my opinion. It doesn't prevent weeds and it doesn't drain properly. Roots go right through it and weed seeds plant in the soil and mulch above it. I'm still pulling pieces out from underneath my dogwood that the previous owners of my property installed many years ago.

Atlas, why would you want to line your raised bed? Are you expecting root invasion?

Steve
i-like-to-grow
11 years ago
If you have a raised bed... I wouldn't worry much about root invasion. And if you were wanting a barrier and your bed was raised 10 inches... you could put sheet metal in the bottom and drill small holes in it for draining. People plant in containers right? Landscape fabric is just kinda messy when people put it at the surface... right under the mulch and try to plant through it. But I wouldn't think it would cause many problems burried deep. I wouldn't think it would be a good deterent for maple roots though.. I have roots out 20ft from my 40 foot tall water maple that are 3 inches in diameter and easily break through plastic edging lol... I dug up around my edging... sawed all the roots off and put sheet metal around... burried out of site lol...
Good Luck.. some of us have to plant around our maples... theres no way in hell I'm cutting down my shade =P
John
User
11 years ago
A lot of folks lay down many layers of newspapers before they put the soil in the raised beds. It helps keep down the weeds, and I really like the idea.

Using landscape cloth for building raised bed

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Janice

in ny zone5

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Using landscape cloth for building raised bed

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