Recycling area rugs in your garden couldn’t be cheaper … after all .. they are going to be thrown out anyway. Instead of filling the landfill with old rugs, buying landscape fabric, using pre-emergent herbicides, or vegetation killers, try blocking the weeds, or grass, with recycled rugs. It’s better for the environment, much safer for your green space than spraying chemicals, and easier than having to haul used rugs to the landfill. Consider upcycling your rugs in your garden once they’ve become too shabby for your home. The flora and fauna won’t mind the pattern or the stains.
There is a huge market for landscape fabric and weed barriers, but what is sold as nursery cloth, weed block, landscape fabric, fabric mulch, etc., just doesn’t last very long whereas an old rug, or carpet, is thick, doesn’t usually need to be staked down, and can last for years. Landscape fabric is very prone to deteriorating from UV rays, the cheaper products break down very quickly just because they are thin, and weeds, and grass, grow through it fairly quickly unless it is a commercial grade fabric. Some people will point out that the chemicals in rugs and carpets can be damaging to the environment, but recycling them in this way keeps them out of the landfill or the incinerator. Landscape fabric has its own set of chemicals as well. In my opinion it seems to be the lesser of two evils.