What to do with thin strip of land

Snuggles

Hi there,

We have a very thin straight strip of land (about a foot wide) which runs all along the side of our driveway, house (against the wall of the house), and back garden fence. On the other side of this strip is a block paved narrow path (not ours).

This is a new build house and this strip of land is covered with very unattractive, presumably cheap, gravel which was laid by the housebuilder. It looks awful and is a nightmare to maintain as grass and weeds constantly grow in it.

Neither myself nor OH are in any way green fingered or diy minded, and we have no idea what to do to make this annoying bit of land look better and easier to maintain.

Are we going to have to put some sort of membrane down and is this practical with such a narrow strip? How is the membrane held in place?

I guess we are going to have to put some more attractive gravel down, or I was thinking maybe bark chippings? Is one better than the other?

Or is there something else we could do that I just haven't thought of?

Any comments/suggestions appreciated!

globalds

can you take a photo ?

Snuggles

globalds wrote: »

can you take a photo ?

I'll try to do that at some point, but really it's just a thin strip of land that runs between my property and the path/road.

michelle2008

Could you eithe grass it, or put a membrane dozen to stop weeds then cover in either better quaity stones or bark?

Snuggles

michelle2008 wrote: »

Could you eithe grass it, or put a membrane dozen to stop weeds then cover in either better quaity stones or bark?

It's so narrow I think it would be very awkward to cut if it was grassed.

Yes, that's what I was asking about - the practicality of putting membrane down and whether gravel or bark is preferable.

Ectophile

I don't know if you have many cats where you live, but round here the cats treat bark chippings as another form of kitty litter. So I always use gravel instead now.

Permeable membrane for weed suppression can be bought by the roll from most good garden centres (or DIY stores with a garden section). You'd need to cut it to the width you want. It might be better to double it over to increase the weed proofing.

pamsdish

poundland sell membrane, its quite wide, fold to the desired width, nothing will penetrate that thickness, cover with gravel chippings, the bark chippings move about, gravel in a nice colour as already suggested is more permanent. You will always have to pull the odd weed out as they will even grow without soil, but as their roots are not in soil it`s very easy.

good_advice

Morning. We have the same here. A gravel thin strip next to party garden wall and around front of our house. Rubbish get blown in.
In the spring we have bluebells coming through the gravel.

cyclonebri1

Membrane, cheap chipping of your choice, then a quality weedkiller treatment once per year.;), weeds will thrive in any substrate, especially niches like yours where they are blown in on the wind and take up lodgings.

Lucy_Lastic

Another vote for slate chippings. I've got the blue ones, they look really nice and at the garden centre they told me that as they have sharp edges, cats do not like them.

I found that bark chippings get blown around and also scattered by birds possibly picking out bits for their nests, gravel gets treated like a litter tray by cats.

I have a good membrane and a thick layer of slate chippings and very few weeds.

Snuggles

Hi, many thanks for all the comments. It looks as though membrane plus slate chippings might be the way to go (we do have a lot of cats in the neighbourhood, so bark is probably not a good idea).

I really curse the developers leaving this totally useless strip, it's just awful, seems to collect rubbish, as another poster said, and because it borders the path/road people seem to think it's fine to dump their fag butts on it. I'm hoping if we can smarten it up a bit, it will deter people from doing this.

Thanks again!