I am with Laceyvail - don't use weedcloth in a garden! If you google weedcloth on many of the forums, you'll see lots of opinions that agree with this. Roots of woody plants from below and weed seeds that have blown in from above will root into the fabric and you will come to regret putting it in. It keeps mulch separated from the soil, so the soil doesn't get new organic matter and as the mulch breaks down and organic matter blows in you have new growing medium on top of the landscape fabric. It's an all around bad idea and the nightmare is when you decide to get rid of it . . . DH did this once many years ago and it both didn't work and was misery to remove a couple of years later. It does have its uses - to keep drainage material from washing out from behind a dry-stacked stone retaining wall, to keep soil in a basket where you want to plant annuals, or under a walkway to separate layers of soil and drainage material, but you will come to regret ever using it where there are plants growing in a garden. Instead of using landscape fabric, I mow down everything to ground level and sometimes will dig a few weeds that I know to be stubborn, put down heavy cardboard and then a heavy layer of medium fine mulch on top of that to a depth that settles to about 3 inches. That's enough to prevent most weeds from sprouting and to keep most of the already present weedy plants from coming up through. I let that sit for a few weeks to a year and then plant. If you are in a hurry to plant, though I can't imagine that this is a great time to plant in most areas of Colorado right now, you can use some type of contact weed killer (they range from gas flame weed torches to strong vinegar to Roundup.) One more quick comment - since you are planning to redo the whole area, now would be a perfect time to add any soil supplements like more organic matter to help hold moisture and nutrients.

Thanks for the comments, I appreciate them. Judy, I had just rearranged all of those plants before I found the rock, so I'm glad you like the arrangement. I had let that corner get horribly overgrown with too many penstemons, hollyhocks, and there were tons of leaves and blooms from the oleanders nearby. I like the cleaner look now. The cardon has been in that spot for three years and has grown a lot. The cactus at the left came with this house and I've moved the poor thing several times, LOL. The other plants have been in the ground for a few years too but were recently relocated the the spots in the pic. Psuperb, thanks for the nice comments. When I started working the rock I was worried too that it would be too big to handle. I'm not sure WHAT I would have done had that been the case. Like you mentioned, I was already worrying about replacing the volume of soil that would be vacated by the rock removal. No small feat for a big rock. It sounds like you picked your battle wisely and cut your losses and still found a nice way for your plant to grow. I can totally understand the approach. Thanks again for taking the time to look and comment. The rock and I thank you. :) Take care, and remember folks, lift with your knees by squatting and then standing, not with your back by bending over.

mshaffer....most important tool in my book is the heavy wrecking bar. once you stick a spade shovel all the way around what you want out...(that is where the maddock comes in handy to sever the rhizomes) you get that wrecking bar underneath the ball and start to pry up on it. it will "pop" out of the ground. there were many posts last season about making/selling the bamboo digging tool that someone else suggested. Wild Bill made a great one last year. I didn't make one. personally if you go out and dig with a sharpened shovel(use a grinder to sharpen the edge real good)..i'd bring two just in case and a sharpened mattuck. you should be good to go. All the other posts had viable info. one thing. I used shrink wrap that you would use for palletizing goods/material to pallets for shipping. I used that to wrap all my divisions into one big fat stem....tie a red flag on it. the reason i did this was because 1. It protects the leaves from transpiration when traveling. 2. It also gives the culms stability and although it is an odd looking it is way better than having a bunch of culms all over the place. what i did was after i cut my divisions, i bagged the rootballs with rags and wet them down heavy....then all of the culms sticking out the back i wrapped with shrink wrap. after i got what i thought would be enough without getting pulled over, i cut the tops off with pruning shears or loppers....Hope this helps. this is FYI....it worked good for me. Kurt

Good luck! Im sure it will be fine though. I hear that it will be raining until wednesday in most of California! -Alex