Expert landscaper busts major myth about common yard maintenance tool: ‘It’s not for that and it won’t do that’

If you’ve ever used weed liner to stop the spread of weeds in your garden and found the product doesn’t deliver the desired results, you’re not the first, and it’s likely you won’t be the last.

An expert landscaper has taken to TikTok to explain why the material’s name might be a little misleading.

The Connected Landscapes TikTok account posted a video while working in someone’s yard. The whole area is covered in grass sitting atop weed liner fabric.

But when one of the workers pulls up the fabric, it’s clear that the weeds are penetrating the fabric, and the roots are spreading.

And there is a fairly simple reason for that.

“This material wasn’t meant to keep plants down,” the video is captioned. “Weed liner is really the wrong name for it. … It’s not for that and it won’t do that,” the TikToker said.

“I came to find this out first hand,” one user commented. “A buddy said use it [and] put mulch [on] and nothing will come through. Well within a month it was grown through.”

But Connected Landscapes did offer a couple of solutions to prevent the growth of weeds in your garden.

“If we are adding sod we amend with compost, and if we are planting a bed, cardboard and mulch,” they said for stopping the growth of weeds, adding that pine bark and pine straw is a great mulch to use in Florida specifically. Meanwhile, burlap is suggested as a good material to use for a liner.

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