Jo Ann wrote:
On Aug 7, 10:39 am, "JoeSpareBedroom" wrote:
"stillill" wrote in message

...



Hello,
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.
Shredded mulch stays put better than chips, which tend to blow around. As
others mentioned, forget the pebbles.

Personally, I would like to shoot the person who decided to mulch all
of the garden beds around my house with pebbles. As mentioned, the
weed cloth (if any) has long since stopped doing its job, and every
single weed needs to be pulled by hand -- and we're talking a LOT of
weeds that like that well-mulched soil -- digging my fingers through
several inches of rocks in a (usually futile) attempt to reach far
enough down on the stem to pull the roots.

And don't get me started about what it's like trying to plant
something new in the beds (I know you don't care, but future residents
might).

I'm in the process of removing the stones, and it's one of the most
long-lasting, tedious garden jobs I've ever done. I consider
deliberately adding stones to your flower bed a bad, bad, BAD idea.

Jo Ann

Not only did my house have extensive pebble beds, but when I went to
replace some areas of lawn with flower beds I discovered that there had
been even more pebble beds underneath -- someone had merely laid on some
dirt and then seeded grass on top of that! It was too huge a job to dig
out all the pebbles, so I mostly dug holes for new plants, and they've
taken pretty well. From time to time I'll just sit myself down in an
area and excavate the pebbles one by one. It's a very contemplative
activity, really (how's that for a rationalization?) Sometimes I come
upon shreds of landscape cloth at the very bottom. Since I keep adding
compost and mulch, the beds aren't doing badly, even with the rocky
substrate.

helco