stillill wrote:

I was looking for some advice on how best to cover our front garden,
which is just beds with a couple of rose bushes. There are no bedding
plants as we don't have time to maintain them really.

I was thinking of just covering the beds with weed control material,
and putting down some mulch to cover the area. The garden is flat, and
I was worried about the mulch bark chippings blowing away. Is this
likely? Alternative is to use something like pebbles or similar.

We don't really mind that much how it looks (it is a rented house and
the landlord is letting us doing it and paying for it), just that it's
easily maintainable.

Roses in of themselves require maintenance and are best grown in bare
soil, mulched only during cold weather.

For most other shrubbery pine bark nuggets atop weed block cloth works
well... larger nuggets won't blow away and will last at least five
years... freshen occasionally with a light layer of new nuggets. If
you plant a ground cover it will mature enough to suppress weeds long
before the cloth and nuggets decompose; rug juniper works well.

Pebbles will eventually create a disaster, when the weed block cloth
begins to decay weeds will pop through the pebbles no matter how deep
they're piled... you'll need to remove the pebbles and start over,
much easier said than done. Plus the pebbles will migrate all over
the yard, and they won't decay.... but as a tenant you'll move away
and leave your mess behind, everytime your landlord looks at those
pebbles s/he will curse the day you were born.