covering over a small flower bed - whats best?

tentickles666

We rent a coronation street style terraced house with tiny gated 'garden' at the front. Next doors is fully concreted and fits their wheelie bins neatly while ours has a soil and gravel 'flower' bed full of weeds, so only half the wheelie bin fits on the concrete area and half of it over hangs into the soil

So, i either need to get rid of half of the flower bed and grow something other than weeds and other peoples litter or completely cover it over. the landlord will not help with this as its just an annoyance (when its really wet im not always strong enough to move the bin if its stuck in mud!)

So what are my simple low cost options? we also have a lot of cats locally so id like to avoid creating a large litter tray for them if possible! The area to be covered is about 40cm x 200cm

thanks in advance!

ps, yes i have googled but everything coming up seems to be how to create a raised flower bed, which i may do once there is anough solid surface for the bins

Ebe_Scrooge

So you've got an area of soil that you want to cover, if I understand correctly ? The simplest and cheapest option that springs to mind, assuming it's not going to have to bear much in the way of weight - just get a piece of plywood, cut to size, give it a couple of coats of varnish to seal out the rain, lay it on the soil. Cheap, easy, and easy to remove in future if needs be.


A slightly more permanent solution would be to pave it - not a difficult DIY job, and can be pretty cheap if you don't shell out for fancy paving slabs. You may even be lucky and find some cheap ( or even free ) slabs on gumtree or suchlike.


Apologies if I've misunderstood your requirements

glasgowdan

Agree, bits of wood. I wouldn't bother painting it though...get something used and lying about the place. A scaffold board might be the right size.

rach_k

I'd just plonk a paving stone on the bit where the wheelie bin hangs over into the flower bed, or perhaps a couple of bricks, whatever you can get your hands on easily enough.