Solve backwards
How big a garden bed will my landscape fabric cover?
- 2 rollsThe example worked below
- Landscape Fabric CalculatorEvery figure is its own
You have
How much landscape fabric?
Worked by the Landscape Fabric Calculator at the settings below.
The settings it uses
- Overlap Allowance (%)
- 10
What it will do
545 sq ft of bed
50.7 m²
One garden bed. Enough for a garden bed about 23.4 × 23.4 ft.
Or several. About 1 garden bed of the size the Landscape Fabric Calculator opens on: a garden bed about 20.7 × 20.7 ft.
Check it forwards
- Bed or Path Area
- 545 sq ft
- It asks for
- 2 rolls
- You have
- 2 rolls
The Landscape Fabric Calculator asks for 2 rolls at that size, and 3 rolls one step larger.
If you had more, or less
Around your amount
Each worked by the Landscape Fabric Calculator at the same settings.
Half
1 roll
273 sq ft
a garden bed about 16.5 × 16.5 ft
Yours
2 rolls
545 sq ft
a garden bed about 23.4 × 23.4 ft
Half as much again
3 rolls
818 sq ft
a garden bed about 28.6 × 28.6 ft
Double
4 rolls
1,091 sq ft
a garden bed about 33 × 33 ft
Common amounts
What each amount of landscape fabric covers
The sizes it is usually sold in, each worked by the Landscape Fabric Calculator at the settings above.
| You have | It covers | As one garden bed | Average garden beds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 roll | 273 sq ft(25.3 m²) | a garden bed about 16.5 × 16.5 ft | under 1 |
| 2 rolls | 545 sq ft(50.7 m²) | a garden bed about 23.4 × 23.4 ft | 1 |
| 4 rolls | 1,091 sq ft(101 m²) | a garden bed about 33 × 33 ft | 2 |
| 6 rolls | 1,636 sq ft(152 m²) | a garden bed about 40 × 40 ft | 3 |
Three hundred square feet a roll
The calculator assumes each roll covers 300 square feet, about 27.9 m², a common retail size, and there is no field for the roll you bought. Landscape fabric is sold in many width and length combinations and the answer moves in direct proportion, so with another roll read the bed from the table and divide by your roll's printed coverage.
Narrow beds spend more on laps
The ten per cent allowance holds on a bed wide enough that a narrow side lap is about a tenth of each strip. On a narrow border, or a long path where end laps stack up, the laps take a far bigger share of every roll — and cutting around shrubs, trunks, posts and curved edges leaves offcuts that fit nowhere else.
Fabric is one layer of a bed
Pins or staples, edging, the ground preparation underneath and the mulch or gravel on top are separate quantities. And under mulch, the organic debris that collects on the fabric becomes its own seed bed whatever grade you buy, so a light non-woven and a heavy woven of the same area differ in life far more than in count.
How the answer is worked
Nothing here is a second formula. The Landscape Fabric Calculator runs forwards — a size in, a quantity out — and this page grows its own starting garden bed in proportion until the quantity it asks for is what you have. Where it rounds up to whole containers, the answer is the largest size before the next one would be needed.
Where the calculator adds an allowance for cuts or breakage when you order, the same allowance comes off here, because it is the same calculator: a stack you already own finishes less than its face value. Where it adds none, neither does this page — the settings beside the answer say which.
Landscape Fabric Calculator
runs it forwardsEstimate how many rolls of weed barrier landscape fabric you need for a garden bed or path.
Work out what to buy insteadSolve backwards
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Solve backwards
Start from what is already in the yard
Paint, sheets, rolls, bags and pieces, each read the other way by the calculator that orders it.
The calculator's own figures
Nothing is estimated twice: the page runs the same calculator you would order with.
The largest size that fits
Where a calculator rounds up to whole containers, the answer stops before the next one.
Both unit systems
Gallons and litres, square feet and square metres, side by side.
Frequently asked questions
- How much bed does 2 rolls of landscape fabric cover?
- At the Landscape Fabric Calculator's own settings, 545 sq ft (50.7 m²) — a garden bed about 23.4 × 23.4 ft. That is about 1 garden bed of the size the calculator opens on: a garden bed about 20.7 × 20.7 ft. Every figure follows the settings, which you can change in the calculator.
- How many square feet does a roll of landscape fabric cover?
- The common retail roll the calculator assumes covers 300 square feet, about 27.9 m²; rolls come in many other sizes. With ten per cent spent on laps it covers about 270 square feet (25 m²) of a wide bed — less on a narrow border, where laps take a bigger share.
- How much should landscape fabric overlap?
- Enough that weeds cannot come up through the seam — commonly several inches, around 150 mm or more, pinned along the lap. On a narrow border or a long path the laps become a large share of the roll, so raise the allowance to match the strips you will actually lay.
- Is landscape fabric worth using under mulch?
- Under gravel and stone paths it keeps the stone out of the soil and slows weeds well. Under organic mulch it works for a season or two, then the mulch breaking down on top becomes soil that weeds root into, and the fabric makes the bed harder to plant and improve. It is a choice, not a default.