Let's be honest: If cheeky weeds keep popping out of the ground in attractively laid out beds, it can be quite annoying. You have to constantly weed the wild herbs if they are not to grow into stately plants. A cheap and effective weed barrier is newspaper, which is laid out on the beds like weed fleece.
Newspaper keeps weeds at bay
Which paper is suitable?
High-gloss brochures and magazines are not suitable, only the daily newspaper or cardboard. This material ensures a weed-free bed for about one to two years that you hardly have to worry about anymore. It decomposes in an environmentally friendly manner and is therefore not a burden on the soil.
How should the newspaper be distributed?
Always use several layers of paper. A single newspaper page would be too thin and would quickly be punctured by the wild plants. If you have decided on cardboard, a single layer is sufficient because of the thicker material.
Proceed as follows when laying out:
- Loosen the soil and thoroughly remove all weeds and their roots.
- Lay the newspaper out in several layers on the bed. The sheets should overlap a little.
- Dampen the paper well. This puts it close to the ground.
- Distribute the plants to be placed and check whether you like the bed design.
- You can easily pierce the paper with the planting shovel. However, be careful not to make the holes too large so that no wild plants can settle in this place.
- After planting, cover the weed barrier with bark mulch, wood chips, or a thin layer of substrate.
If the bed is already planted, you can remove some soil, remove the weeds mechanically and then distribute the moistened newspaper between the useful or ornamental plants. In this case, too, the material is covered with a layer of mulch (€239.00) or substrate.
What alternatives are there?
If you do not have enough newspaper or cardboard in stock, you can use a special fleece from the garden trade to block weeds. However, this is more expensive than paper, which is a waste product in many households anyway.
tips
Almost all printing ink manufacturers now use environmentally friendly raw materials. Toxic heavy metals as color additives are prohibited. The paints must also not contain halogenated organic substances such as biphenyls or chlorofluorocarbons.