From: songbird@anthive.com   
      
   T wrote:   
   ...   
   > Also, mulch on top of fabric beaks down in a few years   
   > and become the ideal medium for weeds.   
      
     at that point it becomes a garden amendment material   
   and is replaced by new wood chips.   
      
     but for your application it won't work.   
      
      
   > I just found out that any perennials under the cover   
   > will poke through too.  I am sensing that covering   
   > is a bad idea.   
      
     not if they're dead.  if you do it right (a few layers   
   of overlapping cardboard and a thick layer of wood chips   
   on top will smother most perennials within a year, by   
   the next year any that still have any energy left in   
   their root systems you pull back the wood chips, cut off   
   what is growing and repeat the process, i've not had any   
   perennial weeds that survive into the third year if kept   
   cut off and smothered for those first two years.  we've   
   also put the cardboard layers under weed barrier fabric   
   and that also helps defeat persistent perennial weeds.   
      
      
   > The goal is to control blowing dust.   
      
     upwind wind breaks, large rocks, walls, substantial   
   fencing, direct 100+ winds aren't going to be deterred   
   by anything minor.  even a very sturdy tree is going   
   to have a hard time standing up to that.   
      
     basically at that point the overall siting of the   
   place would be critical and i'd not want it put out   
   in the open and otherwise be in the lee of a hill or   
   some other natural features.   
      
     with fire risk trying to grow trees as a windbreak   
   only works if the they are able to be planted quite a   
   ways upwind.   
      
     improperly designed wind breaks can act as a channel   
   and in the case of fires that would be like a potential   
   blow torch, so that's far outside my experience.   
      
     for 100+ MPH dust storms you're not going to control   
   that, you just have to build to survive that   
   structurally and if you do put up wind breaks you   
   probably need to think in terms of how they would   
   respond to such large events.  sand blown with that   
   much force is going to scour pretty much anything   
   growing - it'd have to be very tough to survive   
   that...   
      
      
     songbird   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)