Save Money On Ground-Cover Planting With An Unexpected Closet Staple

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Landscape and ground cover fabric is used by homeowners and landscapers alike to stop pesky weeds from popping up and for erosion control. Even if you have the best type of landscape fabric to keep weeds at bay or protect the soil on that bare slope, it's useless if you can't keep it in place. That's where a common item from your closet comes into the picture. Cut the corners off a wire hanger a few inches down from the end and voilà! You have a pair of landscape fabric staples. Likewise, you can cut and bend the straight wire bar along the bottom into staple shapes.

This hack is ideal is if you can get your hangers for free or cheap. Complimentary dry cleaner hangers work great, for example. Have a jam packed closet and no wire coat hangers to spare? Some say that you should stop using wire clothes hangers immediately, since your clothes can slip right off them and onto the floor anyway. If you're not convinced to give them up, ask friends, family, or neighbors if they have an unused bundle of wire hangers on a forgotten shelf. Wire hangers often come up for sale secondhand, too: try thrift stores and yard sales or make a request in your local online free-cycle communities. You can, of course, buy them as well, but ensure they cost less than regular landscape staples.

There are all kinds of genius ways to repurpose old hangers to transform your garden, but this idea is arguably the simplest. If the hanger wire is thin enough, you can cut about 7 inch sections with wire cutters and bend the staples by hand. Alternatively, cut the hanger at the shoulder or right next to the hook and repeat on the opposite side, creating a round-end staple.

If you want to use as much of the hanger as possible, cut the long, straight bar off the hanger and shape it into a square-ended staple using square-nosed pliers. Use the corners as is, perhaps squeezing them closed slightly with your gloved hand. It is, in fact, possible to create staples using plastic hangers by simply cutting off the corners. While this may not be the best solution for gardeners looking to (rightly so) reduce plastic use in the garden, it can work in a pinch.

To use your DIY staples, spread out the ground cover, landscape fabric, or solarization tarp where you want it in your backyard or garden beds and press the staples into the soil through it. Dealing with hard ground? Use a rubber mallet to gently hammer the staples into the soil. Coghlans Rubber Mallet for about $7 even features a handy peg puller on the other side to help you remove staples when the time comes. These staples also come in handy for holding row and mesh covers, irrigation tubing, soaker hoses, or fencing mesh in place.