What should I put on my anti-weeds matting?

[saadia]

We have a flower bed running along the length of our garden which was covered with weeds. Dh has cleared this and covered it with an anti-weed matting type of thing. We were thinking of putting pebbles on it, or woodchip. Any ideas what would be the best thing?

Woodchip

• will blow away in windy conditions
• birds will rummage and make a bit of a mess
• will break down over time

• not too expensive
• eco friendly

Gravel

• not ecofriendly
• possibly expensive (nicer gravel is)

• stays put

Sand
as gravel but cheaper will need a retaining border to hold in place

Why not plant it up with some nice groundcovering plants?

If you have an issues with cats then I wouldn't recommend gravel! Pebbles wouldn't have the same litter tray appeal, but would be more expensive and harder to work with.

I know people that have used woodchip without too many problems (it was fairly chunky and they had a lot of plants so it didn't tend to dry out and blow away too much).

I'd aim for something short term (no offence to your DH, but if the weeds were pernicious types and he didn't get every last fragment of root out the damn things will be back before you know it) to keep the week matting in place, maybe shifting to groundcover plants once you're reasonably confident the weeds have given in

oh thank you Bienchen and Tangle I'd almost given up. We are both the world's most useless gardeners and can't imagine us planting anything. In fact I really wish we hadn't put in the flower bed and just had a lawn all over.

There are no problem cats at the moment, but I was worried that they might be attracted by whatever we used.

Anyway, your info is very useful, maybe we should look into getting a gardener.