Turf and weed fabric

stuffys

stuffys

Member
Hi everyone

Does anyone know if you can lay a weed fabric membrane down before you lay turf on top of it?

We just moved into a new house which was empty for two years and to say weedfest is an understatement. 25 rubble bags of weeds! One of the weeds was the dreaded Marestail, which I have only recently had the pleasure of meeting with at my new allotment.

So would weed fabric under turf work?

Thanks in advance.

Mike.
 
The membrane works by not letting weeds root through it so I'd hazard a guess at no.
 
Acheives nothing in my opinon,you lay turf, wind blows is seeds from weeds,they root, & you soon have weeds growing in your new lawn.

And Marestail is a bugger to get rid of, Kibosh (now Kurtail) was great for killing it.
 
KIAB said:
Acheives nothing in my opinon,you lay turf, wind blows is seeds from weeds,they root, & you soon have weeds growing in your new lawn.

And Marestail is a bugger to get rid of.
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A horrible Bugger, my allotment had been unloved for over a year when I got it and was covered with the stuff. Nearly a year on and my war against it continues.
Just wondered if the membrane would at least help tackle the existing roots, new seeds is another problem?
 
Had Marestail in a allotment, ended up rolling the marestails, then spraying it, ( bruise the shoots) by crushing it, it allows the weedkiller to be asborbed better.

Marestail will thrive being covered.
 
Try this.
1. Prepare the soil - cultivate, remove large stones/weeds, rake, compact (walking all over it on just your heels), rake again, compact, rake again etc until happy with the levels/gradients.
2. Leave well alone and allow any weed seeds and vegetation to germinate/regrow - Two or three weeks at least.
3. Spray weeds with appropriate weedkiller. The law prevents anyone not registered from advising on the choice of weedkiller however you could 'round up' a number of opinions should you wish....
4. Leave for seven days. Depending on how much weed there is you might want to cut them down with a mower but you're trying not to disturb your prepared surface too much.
5. Rake over again very lightly to remove footprints and achieve final finish. Each time you disturb the soil you will expose more weed seed so keep this to the minimum.
6. Lay turf by starting nearest you working on scaffold boards as you go to prevent damage/depressions to new lawn.

or....

If the lawn/weed patch is still a 'lawn', just start cutting it regularly - not too short at first - and see what happens. A lot of weeds don't tolerate regular mowing and give up. There are loads of weeds that do however and they're known as lawn weeds - mare's tail isn't one so long as it's not rampant everywhere else and left untreated. Depending on what you're looking for you might be surprised at how quickly you get something half decent and functional.

Good luck with it.

PS. in my experience 'Weed Free Turf' simply meant that the weeds were free, and you weren't charged extra for them!
 
A lot of weedkillers like Rosate 36(now Rosate 360),Gallup XL,Roundup Pro, are readily available on Ebay, but for best results they need to be used in a sprayer,they are slow working, but will kill from the tip to the root, & will kill everything they touch & you need to take precautions using them.
 
Mr. Handyandy said:
Eh?
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Since the late 1980's one has to be a BASIS Registered Competent Person to recommend pesticide products. There are ways around it (sort of) for instance it used to be the case that a large company only needed one registered person - whether that's still the case I don't know. Equally you have to have a certificate to apply pesticides (includes herbicides by the way) in a non domestic setting or in a domestic setting if you are not the owner. This is a generalisation but lots of jobbing gardeners fall foul of this.
 
WillyEckerslike said:
Since the late 1980's one has to be a BASIS Registered Competent Person to recommend pesticide products. There are ways around it (sort of) for instance it used to be the case that a large company only needed one registered person - whether that's still the case I don't know. Equally you have to have a certificate to apply pesticides (includes herbicides by the way) in a non domestic setting or in a domestic setting if you are not the owner. This is a generalisation but lots of jobbing gardeners fall foul of this.
Click to expand...

It doesn't bar you from buying, selling or recommending weedkillers for domestic use. Unless you are recommending industrial strength(to be used by instructed persons) etc
 
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