I have a rectangular area approximately 7' x 20' between the walkway to my
front door and the side of the garage that has bushes against the house and
garage and the rest of it is river rock (over dirt of course).

I keep having grass intrustion. A few months ago I stipped it down to the
dirt and applied Ortho Basic Solutions Total Vegetation killer, which the
local garden shop assured me would last for years, laid down weed cloth and
the river rock. A few months later I was getting grass poking back through.

I've gone through the chore of shoveling out the river rock again and am
down to bare ground. Any suggestions regarding what can I lay down to keep
the area absolutely grass and weed free, essentially forever, or at least
several years, without killing the surrounding bushes?

All assistance will be appreciated.

I've found the total vegetation killers, eg Triox, to be very
effective. Properly applied, they will last for months, up to a whole
season, but nothing will last for years. If you applied the product
and then put down other material on top of it, ie cloth and rock,
you;re doing it in the wrong order. The product should be applied on
top, as a final step. When you put cloth and rock on top, after
applying the product, there is going to be some amount of dust and
other material which is now above the killer, leaving a place for weeds
to get established.

wrote in message
oups.com...
I've found the total vegetation killers, eg Triox, to be very
effective. Properly applied, they will last for months, up to a whole
season, but nothing will last for years. If you applied the product
and then put down other material on top of it, ie cloth and rock,
you;re doing it in the wrong order. The product should be applied on
top, as a final step. When you put cloth and rock on top, after
applying the product, there is going to be some amount of dust and
other material which is now above the killer, leaving a place for weeds
to get established.


That was how the garden shop suggested it be applied. I guess I'm trying to
make the dirt as inhospitable to living organisms as possible. Perhaps
something in the dirt as well as on top of the cloth and rocks?

"That was how the garden shop suggested it be applied. I guess I'm
trying to
make the dirt as inhospitable to living organisms as possible. Perhaps
something in the dirt as well as on top of the cloth and rocks? "

I think you're making it a lot harder than it has to be. I've used
Triox applied on top of a crushed stone driveway, no cloth. One
application in spring kept just about all the weeds out until at least
fall.

Doc wrote:

"That was how the garden shop suggested it be applied.

I think they were wrong. The weed cloth served as a barrier between
the vegetation killer and any seed that dropped on top after you did
the work.

I don't like weed cloth anyway. It's a real pain a few years down the
road when you decide you want to do something else with that space.
For example, you decide to plant a few perenials in amoungst all the
rocks in that area -- getting that weed cloth out of the way is a real
pain. And in a few years the weed cloth is covered with dirt, so it
serves no purpose anymore.

I guess I'm trying to
make the dirt as inhospitable to living organisms as possible. Perhaps
something in the dirt as well as on top of the cloth and rocks? "

wrote:

I think you're making it a lot harder than it has to be. I've used
Triox applied on top of a crushed stone driveway, no cloth. One
application in spring kept just about all the weeds out until at least
fall.

I agree, you're making it much harder than you need to. Don't bother
to remove the rock. Just apply a vegetation killer on top of the rock.
You'll need to do it once a season, but 7' x 20' isn't that large.