Plastic under stones

[Persephone]

I just had a horrible mess of weeds dug up on the roses path against the S. wall of the house. Did half myself and had gardener do the rest*. REALLY tenacious deep-rooted grass.

This path leads into a roundish area containing a Princess plant, the sewer out- whatever (has a cap you can pull off), and a faucet that drips all the time, no doubt nourishing weeds.

*He mixed up the small stones covering the roundish area, so I had a hell of a time pulling them all out. I then covered the area with a double sheet of plastic, over which I re-piled the stones, being careful to remove the dirt that came with them.

Point of all this is to ask whether anybody has had experience with this kind of solution to keeping weeds down. I'd hate to go through this again soon!

Any info appreciated.

TIA

Persephone

[d]

I wouldn't call it a good long term solution!

We bought a house where the owners had done exactly that- over time, dirt and dust and whatever built up in the bed of stones and just as many weeds grew as before. Plus, if your plants are too close their roots will spread above the plastic, since they can't get any water below it.

[z]

kind of like the guy said, you need to make sure weeds don't start rooting among the stones. you can just stir them up from time to time especially if they seem to be getting a foothold, and occasionally wash out everything that will wash out with a hose. the other contender is grass with runners, which a lot of lawn grasses have, in order to help them fill in bald spots; they will happily fill in between the stones and since they're cabled back to the lawn grass they don't give up easily, you need to just grab them by hand and pull them out with the runners all the way back to the lawn.