DeWitt APB5 Anchoring Bulk Pins, Box of 500

I turned most of my backyard into a deck, and wanted to cover all areas underneath the deck with landscaping fabric. The landscaping fabric was cheap, but the pins/anchors were running out quickly. I went to 2 of my local hardware stores who weren't selling/ordering any more because they were no longer considered "in season". I bought these and finished the job with left overs for when I decided to to the front yard!These are plain metal pins.. on the downside they may eventually rust. On the up side they're a lot easier to put in and less expensive then the plastic.

I garden two acres. I hate pulling weeds. Therefor I have put down a LOT of landscaping fabric. These pins work well, and are much cheaper in bulk. They stand up to me pushing them in with my dandelion puller or rubber mallet or a rock. They DO rust, so aren't re-usable if you change your mind about placement after a year or more.

These landscape pins are a useful tool. We use them to pin down weed fabric, chicken wire, short wire fencing, and shade cloth.

3 out of 4 pins bent as they were being driven into the ground... they bend on even the smallest rock in the ground. Unless you are driving into perfect top soil, I would not recommend.

I wish there were a 10" model available. 6" just wasn't enough to hold my landscape fabric in my garden rows. The wind ended up catching the fabric and the stakes pulled out very easily. these stakes might work into sod or clay but for worked up garden soil they are not a good application. For some people they may work just fine.

DeWitt APB5 anchoring pins are heavy duty and have sharp ends; however, they are not galvanized and will start to rust within a few weeks of being inserted into the ground. (see consumer submitted pictures) I use galvanized pins because I like to pull up my landscape cloth and amend my soil every couple of years. Heavily rusted pins are a pain to remove because they tend to snag the landscape cloth.Unfortunately, these DeWitt pins rust just as quickly as the cheap ones. My advice, save your money and buy the cheaper ones.As a alternative (and I know this isn't for everyone) you can make your own anchoring pins by purchasing a pair of 14 inch bolt cutters and a spool of thick galvanized wire at your local hardware store, cut them to the length you need and then clip the ends of the wire at a angle to get a sharp point. Then take the wire and bend it around a tire iron held in place by a vise. The pins end up rounded, but will still work almost as well as the squared ones and since they are made out of galvanized wire, a year or two down the road, they will be a snap to remove; since they won't have the rusted, craggy edges.By the way, the non-rusted pins you see in the consumer submitted pictures (Yes, they are mine.) were in the ground more than 3 years and are still in good usable condition. Though it can be a lot of work to make your own anchoring pins, the advantage is you won't have to buy wire or make new pins for at least four or five years and maybe longer, depending on your soil conditions.

Received these pins on a Saturday, which surprised me to begin with. When I opened the box I was pleased to see that the pins are heavy duty and seem like they will do quite nicely for the project. They are much heavier than anything you can affordably purchase in the big box stores and per piece, they are much less expensive. Granted, most DIYers will never need 500 pins, but being a professional, they will come in handy to keep on the shelf for future projects. The only reason for not giving 5 stars is that I think landscape fabric pins in general are much more expensive than they should be.

This is by far the most affordable way to tackle any large project involving landscape fabric,installing deer fencing, or both - like we did. We bought one box thinking, "how could we possible use 500?" and wondering what on earth we would do with all the leftovers. Well, we ended up needing to order a second box to finish the project. The landscape fabric pins available at our local store cost significantly more in packages of 100, so we were very happy with the price point as well as the convenience of having 500. Good deal.