Gardening Methods

gardening – plastic lining under decking. dark or clear?

I am putting down garden wooden decking.
I know that i need to put down first some plastic sheet or viscose or something.
Does it matter if the plastic is clear or black?
why?
The decking is about an inch or two above the soil.
I thought that ti had to put plastic down to stop weeds and stuff?

Plastic is plastic, as long as it is UV rated so it doesn’t lose the plasticisers to quickly and become brittle etc. I’m not sure why you are choosing to lay plastic underneath (i’ve never heard of it before and we have many decks at our various houses and none of them have plastic underneath…not even ones that are only a few inches above the soil, and we are in a temperate climate so plenty of water).

The only reason i can think of would be water or weeds…but weeds will not grow underneath a deck because there is no light and any wood you are using should be treated (e.g perma pine) and therefore not matter if it gets moist. Infact laying plastic would mostly make the moisture problem worse by drying out the soil underneath causing contraction, and any water there would simply pool rather than soak into the ground having a worse affect on the wood.

Self watering plastic / green house