Green plastic mesh

could it be to stop squirrels digging up bulbs perhaps? You won't know what is under the ground till a whole season has passed. I err on the side of caution and leave it be for now , previous owner might have had a good reason for putting it there that will become apparent with time.

If it isn't being used as ground cover to prevent the spread of aggressive weeds, then I would pull it up. Perhaps it was used initially as part of a planting plan.

Could be to stop cats digging to bury their doings in the flower beds? Though if they're anything like our visiting cats, they just do it straight on the lawn and don't bury it at all!

Thanks, Tanith and HildajenniJ - I did think initially that it might have been laid to help manage weeds, hadn't thought about hungry squirrels! A friend had already cautioned me to do nothing in the garden apart from weeding for a year, to see what was actually in there, so maybe I need to do the same with the mesh, however ugly it is!

Grey duster, you may have hit the nail on the head - not that there are many cats around here, but previous owners had small dog, maybe laid mesh to stop it doing damage!

Caphyx - to stop dogs digging - I'd go for that one. What a clever idea, I might try it here.
Something keeps digging holes, could be dogs cats or chickens.

I have seen a herbaceous border (can't remember where) where there was netting strung up horizontally with supports, about 2-3 ft above the ground. The perennials had grown up through this so it was acting as support for the flowers. Maybe the previous owners intended to raise it up as the plants grew.

I don't think holes 2" square would smother weeds.

I would leave it for a season and see what comes up first.

Tanith has a very good point about squirrels. All my patio pots with bulbs in now have chicken wire over the top or the B squirrels will dig them up to eat or to plant their B peanuts. Wait and see.

I would be a little cautious about it. We once inadvertently trapped a hedge-hog under some green mesh we had placed up a fence. It must have died a very horrible death.

We heard an animal crying early one morning and went out to investigate. At the foot of our garden a neighbour had draped pea mesh along the top of the wall to deter the cats which used it as a highway. A halfgrown vixen cub was entangled in it. We called an RSPCA man, who cut her loose. She wasn't at all grateful and seemed to blame him. Boy, did she scarper!

As a complete non-sequitur, my parents in law had a tennis court with traditional netting round the outside which reached down to the grass. Hedgehogs would get caught up in it and my mother in law could be seen many an early morning cutting holes in the netting to free the little animals - my father in law was less than impressed with the resulting 'scalloped' border of the netting round the court!
Thank you to everyone who has shared their knowledge / opinion about this green mesh.

The one that the little fox was caught in was the thin floppy sort - yours sounds like the stiffer kind, which doesn't entangle animals quite the same.

If it's really horrid could you cover it with bark, or would you need to be so rich?!

I had pea netting covering my strawberries last year and we were half way through dinner one evening when we noticed a starling well and truly tangled up in it. It took us twenty minutes of ultra careful snipping to remove this bird which was all the time trying to take lumps out of me! It flew away unharmed. Dinner was stone cold . I took the netting away and will not use it again this year. The strawberries will have to take their chances!

Why not cover it with bark chips, much easier on the eye and a good weed suppressant.