How Much Weed Barrier Fabric a Bed Takes, by Roll Width

Weed barrier fabric goes down under the stone or mulch in a planting bed. It blocks sunlight to stop weeds, and it lets water through to the plants you keep. You need two measurements to work out how much fabric a bed takes. The first is the depth of the bed from front to back, and the second is its length along the edging.

Every roll in our weed cloth aisle is 250 feet long. The depth of the bed sets the roll width you pick. The length of the bed is the number of feet you take off the roll. The same rolls go by two other terms: weed cloth in our store and landscape fabric in the maker's product name.

The six roll widths and the square feet in each

We stock Fabriscape Professional Landscape Fabric in six widths of 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 feet. Fabriscape has supplied landscape fabrics since 1983. We sell the fabric by the roll. The page for each roll on our site shows today's price. Each roll label at the yard shows the fabric weight, and you can read it before you buy.

To get the square feet in a roll, multiply its width by 250 feet. That gives 750 square feet on the 3 foot roll and 1,000 square feet on the 4 foot roll. The 6 and 8 foot rolls have 1,500 and 2,000 square feet of fabric on them. At the wide end of the aisle, the 10 foot roll has 2,500 square feet and the 12 foot roll has 3,000.

Square feet help you compare one roll with another. For a bed, the depth matters more, because one run of fabric covers a bed only as deep as the roll is wide. When a bed is a little shallower than the roll, you still lay the full width of the run and trim the extra fabric at the edging.

Work out how much weed barrier fabric your bed takes

Measure the bed from front to back at its deepest point. Then measure its length along the edging from one end to the other. Write both numbers down for every bed on the job.

Pick the narrowest roll that is at least as wide as the bed is deep. One run of that roll covers the bed from front to back with no seam. A bed shallower than 3 feet still takes the 3 foot roll, because that is the narrowest width we stock.

Take a foundation bed along the front of a house. The bed is 3 and a half feet deep and 60 feet long. The narrowest roll that covers that depth is the 4 foot Fabriscape roll. The bed uses 60 of the roll's 250 feet, and the other 190 feet stay on the roll for your next bed. Four feet is the common width for foundation plantings and flower beds.

That same bed shows why square feet alone can mislead you. The bed has 210 square feet of ground. The run takes 240 square feet off the roll, because the roll is half a foot wider than the bed is deep.

Count the rolls for every bed on the job

Add up the lengths of every bed that takes the same roll width. One roll covers up to 250 feet of bed length when a single run spans the depth. For a long job, divide the total length for each width by 250 and round up to the next whole roll.

For a bed deeper than 4 feet, step up to the 6, 8, 10 or 12 foot roll. On an open gravel area wider than one roll, the wide rolls cover the ground in fewer runs. Fewer runs leave you fewer seams to plan.

When a bed is deeper than 12 feet, you lay two runs of weed barrier fabric side by side so they meet at a seam. Two runs take twice the bed length in fabric, because each run is as long as the bed. Plan the seams with us when you call, because we work them into your roll count.

Treat a bed that turns a corner as two straight beds. Measure each leg along the edging, and add the two lengths together before you count the feet of fabric.

Lay the fabric with the maker's five steps

Fabriscape's five steps for laying weed barrier fabric fit every width in our aisle. In steps 3 and 4, you fit the fabric around the plants in the bed.

1. Strip the existing sod and weeds out of the area you plan to cover.
2. Unroll the fabric over the bed. Cut it long enough to go over the plants you keep and reach the edging.
3. Cut an X where each new plant goes, or cut an X large enough to pull an existing plant through.
4. Set each new plant in its X, or pull the fabric gently over an existing plant. Then tuck the corners of the fabric around the stem.
5. Cover the fabric with decorative stone or bark so sunlight never reaches it.

Air and the fertilizer you spread on the bed also get through the fabric to the roots. Fabriscape says all of its fabrics are permanent when they stay covered from sunlight. A full cover of stone or bark keeps the sun off the fabric.

Pick the stone or mulch that covers the fabric

Once you finish the bed, the fabric goes out of sight and the stone or mulch on top is what you look at every day. We sell four kinds of cover for weed barrier fabric: creek rock, river rock, gravel, and mulch in hardwood or rubber.

For landscape fabric under gravel in an open area with no plants, you leave out steps 3 and 4. The gravel is the cover, and it keeps the sun off the fabric.

Our post on rubber mulch and wood mulch compares the two mulches for a bed. The fabric and both mulches are in our landscaping supplies aisle. You can pick up the roll and the cover on the same trip to the yard.

We are a 7-acre stone yard in Hot Springs Village with Bennett Brothers of Hot Springs heritage since 1972. You can see the creek rock and the gravel on the yard, and you pick out the actual stone before you buy it. We deliver the rolls and the stone straight to the jobsite for contractors, which saves you the trip to the yard and the wear on your truck. We also coordinate freight for jobs beyond the local area.

Call 501-532-1905 with your bed sizes ready

With these five things in hand when you call, we can work out your roll count on the phone. Measure every bed you plan to cover, because one missing bed changes the count.

• The depth of each bed from front to back at its deepest point.
• The length of each bed along the edging from one end to the other.
• Whether stone or mulch will cover the fabric in each bed.
• How thick you want the stone or mulch in each bed.
• The jobsite address if you want the fabric and the stone brought to the job.

We will match a roll width to each bed and count the feet of fabric it takes. From the same numbers, we work out how much stone or mulch each bed needs. We do both counts for free. Bring the same list to the yard when you want to pick out the stone in person.

Call 501-532-1905, or come to 5643 N Hwy 7 in Hot Springs Village between 7:30 AM and 4:30 PM on a weekday. Come on down, and we will show you the weed barrier fabric rolls and the stone that goes on top of them.