My front garden was looking a little ragged. I was tired of permanently fighting a loosing battle against weeds, so I thought I would brighten up the garden and make it low maintenance at the same time.

I placed a good quality weed suppressing material over the soil. It is best to prepare the soil, by removing weeds and raking until smooth. Then I placed a strip of weed suppressing material on the soil. To go round the trees, I gave the material a little cut so it would squeeze through the stem of the trees.

Then I laid some stones on top of the weed suppressing material and that was all. The weed suppressing material is relatively cheap. The stones from my local garden centre were quite expensive. But, since it was a small area it wasn’t too bad. If you are using a lot of stones / pebbles, it is worth looking into a custom delivery.

The interesting thing is how the brightly coloured gravel changed the complexion of the garden. Funnily enough a lodger who had been living there a few months, thought the conifers had just been planted. In other words, with gravel underneath it looked a different plant.

Now it is laid down, at least part of the garden will be weed free and low maintenance for a long time. A good investment of time and money.

• Weed suppressing fabric at Amazon.co.uk

Related

• Tips for weeding a garden