My front garden has slabs laid in a square U shape, with a large-ish square in the middle covered in pebbles. There is a flower border to one side.
Every single gap and crack is filled with bluebells. They come up in the lines between the slabs, through the pebbles, through edging, the border is full of them. It is an absolute nightmare trying to maintain it. Every year I try to dig them out, but they come back worse. I don’t know how deep the pebbles are in the soil, but trying to get a shovel through is painful. It’s impossible to uproot them from between the slabs, so even if I pull them up there’s still the leftovers poking through. The slimy leaves get mixed up with the pebbles and take an age to clean up.
The slabs are old and ugly anyway, and the bluebells just make the whole thing look unkempt. We can’t afford to redo the whole garden, but if we just replaced the slabs, this would be affordable and make a huge difference. There are only about 25ish large slabs in total.
But it’s going to be a waste of money, if the pebbles and border are full of them, and they spread between the new slabs.
If new slabs are laid with a proper base (current ones appear to be directly on soil), are they still likely to spread? Do I have any options to get rid apart from saving up and tarmacing the whole thing? Sorry for the long post but they really are the bane of my life, especially this time of year. I would rather deal with dandelions.