Weed-proofing a gravel path

Roger Mills · 2019-06-21T09:17:40+00:00

I have a patio area/path consisting of a couple of inches of pea gravel on top of some weed matting.When I first created this 20-odd years ago, I gave the soil a liberal dose of sodium chlorate before laying the weed matting. This kept it weed-free for quite a few years, but the matting has now deteriorated - allowing a lot of weeds to take root.I have removed the gravel and the weeds, and am about to take up the matting and renew it before covering it with new gravel. I need to be able to neutralise the soil in order to prevent any roots or seeds left in from growing. I don't think you can buy sodium chlorate any more. Most of the weedkillers available seem to be of the systemic type - which kill existing weeds but don't affect the soil. But that's not what I want!Any bright ideas?

Jun 21, 2019 Last reply: 7 years ago 21 Replies

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John Rumm 7 years ago

can you see it under the gravel?

So leave it there...

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The Natural Philosopher 7 years ago

I had rabbits grazing the dead nettles in my gravel so today I got out my brand new £2.95 sieve from Home base, and started shovelling the gravel into it

One trug for anything green one for what was sieved and then just put the gravel back

You would not *believe* how much soil I sieved out.

Probably a large bucketful for every square meter.

Rate was about a square meter an hour for the very bad bits

3 sq meters done ...15 to go...

I got about 10 kilos of compostable material as well

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