idea for strip garden in driveway

stef73

My front driveway is about 4m wide by about 8m long, there is a 1m by 8m strip of "garden" so drive is only about 3m wide. We only use the front for parking our 2 cars and have not interest of maintaining this strip so its abit messy. Very soon i have a week off work so would inbetween painting a bedroom and the kitchen would have time to look at this strip. Im after cheap and easy ideas for what to do with the strip as im sick of weeds, overgrown bushes and cat poo. It would not be to stand cars on more to give room when opening car doors.

Leif

I have a 1m wide strip at the side of my drive. I took out the Buddleja, weed trees, and weeds, and planted shrubs. Then I realised the shrubs would interfere with the car doors. So I removed some, leaving a Pieris at each end. I replaced them with low growing plants, such as a smallish Hebe, two small Hebes, geraniums, sedums and Saxifraga. I rather like them, they are thriving, and flowering at different times. The bed requires weeding, but shredded clippings spread around will help keep down weeds, and feed the soil. Some people don't like Sedums but they thrive in dry conditions and will spread nicely. I do get cat poo though. :mad:

Leif

Oh, and other suitable plants include Rosemary from the Prostratus group, which is low growing, Oregano, Lavender, heathers, Aubretia, and many others.

somethingcorporate

A strip of concrete slabs/pebbles?

stef73

The strip is about 2" higher than the drive and has rounded edging sunk into the soil so for concrete slabs would i have to dig down to lay a sand bed? . The low plants are an idea if they stay low and maybe pebbles to stop weeds and cat poo.

Leif

The cat poo does seem to rot down quickly, unlike when it is on the lawn. My neighbour had a cat poo in his lettuce patch which is altogether more awful

laurel7172

I had a similar strip between my path and a neighbour's hedge.

I split up a large clump of perennial geranium into twelve bits and planted it in the strip...eighteen months later it had pretty much filled it in. And geranium is nice and soft so would never interfere with car doors. It doesn't take many vigorous ground cover plants to do the job...depends how instant you want your results to be.