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I agree that "good maintenance practices" are the real culprit with weed growth. For instance, if there are 6-8" of mulch on a bed, as you stated, there's going to be problems. Landscapers need to educate the customers on the fact that too much mulch is bad for plants. Of course, part of the problem is that some guys are really in the business of selling mulch and not interested in plant health.
Over the last 15 years since I've gotton heavy into design/planting, I've literally installed acres of landscape fabric and I still do work on many of those properties. Seeing fabric is extremely rare. Even in those cases, it's because one of my guys didn't follow the "weedmat-laying-guidelines" I mentioned above. If freeze-thaw was the culprit I'd see it everywhere I've worked.
Believe me, our job would be MUCH easier if we didn't have to install weedmat. It's a pain. And I know it's an added expense that I know many of my competitors like to skimp on. But I really believe that one of the things that will get return business from a customer that just did a plant install with us is that the beds are low maintenance. If there are alot of weeds the first year or two, they won't do any more planting. Therefore you've lost your most important asset...a happy, return customer. If the beds stay low maintenance over those two years,however, they have the confidence to move ahead with more planting projects... And you've got priceless referral.... And many of those return customers say, "...you're going to put that fabric in there again, right..."
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