As I’ve said before, weeds are notorious for finding ways of growing through weed fabric and along yard edges.
Middle of yard
To combat weeds from popping up in the middle of your landscape, lay cement board everywhere. Cement board is porous so water can still drain through it. For the areas between the cement boards, weeds will grow. To prevent this from happening, cut pond liner and place it where the cement board gaps are. Pond liner is very strong, UV-resistant, and almost impossible to tear. Traditional weed fabric may be marketed with the claim that it can prevent weeds but it can’t. Weeds still manage to come through. Plus, if you use weed fabric along edges where it’s exposed, it can degrade and easily tear as shown in the picture below.
Now I have to replace that weed fabric with pond liner like I did along a different fence.
Edges of yard
For edges, you can screw pressure-treated 2x4s to the cement edges using special screws and a drill bit for concrete. Just make sure to drill using the hammer drill mode.
If there is no room to drill a screw into the concrete, e.g. if the edge is near a fence, then you can drill 1/2-inch holes in the 2×4 using a 1/2″ spade bit and drive 12-inch long, 3/8-inch galvanized nails through the holes into the ground.
Cut some pond liner and staple it to the 2x4s. Don’t use traditional weed fabric. It will eventually fail and rip and weeds will come through it.
Hammer the large nails through the 2x4s and the pond liner into the ground along the edge of the concrete as shown below.
Allow some of the pond liner to extend beyond the end of the 2×4 so the next 2×4’s pond liner will overlap the first one and prevent weeds from growing in between the 2x4s.
Since 2x4s may not be perfectly straight, you can push them against the concrete edge using a clamp.
If the other side is a wood fence, you can simply staple some pond liner to the fence. In the picture below, the space between the concrete and the fence was narrow. I left a gap between the pond liner for drainage.
Easily cut cement board using a reciprocating saw. You can also use a utility knife or the WEN Electric Fiber Cement and Siding Shear, Variable Speed (3670).
In this case, I placed the cement board over the gaps between the pond liner to prevent weeds from growing along the gap.
You can then put rocks like I did pictured below.
There will still be a small gap between the concrete edge and the 2x4s. Fill that cap with concrete control joint sealant. I like Sikaflex Self-Leveling Sealant. Learn more.
For the rocks, I used ¾-inch ginger rocks / Sonoma gold rocks.
