Will this work?

Pipkin

We have a lovely little path in our not so lovely back garden, alongside which we dug out a strip of soil either side. The original plan was to have a lavender walkway, but we tried that and the lavender didn't do too well. We are quite exposed and it gets very wet and cold. Just behind the path we are creating a rockery with plum slate chips and the new idea was to plant up the strip alongside the path and use the chips on there too. I've been thinking about what to plant, and we have lovely campanula, lupins, delphinium in our front garden, which are even more exposed, but have proven to be fully hardy over the course of 4 years. So, I'm thinking I could plant them alongside the path, but my question is, if we cover the soil with weed suppressing fabric, cut a hole in it, plant the lupins etc and then cover the fabric with the slate chips, will the plants be able to come through and grow again next year? Thanks for all your help!

DaftyDuck

I'm sorry to say, I don't think it will. Weed-suppressing fabric combined with plants that die back is not usually a successful combination.

Just looking at your original plan with lavender, it would survive most things, but not winter waterlogging. If you can dig in deep gravel to improve drainage, it'd grow fine.

Otherwise, use the lupins and delphiniums, but drop the weed-suppressing barrier. Be warned, they don't like damp soil overwinter either.

Pipkin

Thank you ! I wonder why they have survived out the front where they have thrived on neglect? Maybe a different type of soil.