Obliterating a useless strip of "lawn" ...

Hello all

New here, hope I'm posting in the right place .... but I have a question about an upcoming project. Not as grand as some I've seen here!

Problem: there is a small strip of land - about 8 ft wide - between one side of my house and the fence separating us from next door. It gets very little light or rain, being very well sheltered by house and overhanging trees. In fact, it is pretty useless and mostly just an eyesore.

At the moment about half of the width (next to the house) is laid to a flagstone path, which is continuous with the patio at the back of the house. This is handy, as it means I can get to the back door of my garage and also a manky old garden shed.

The other half of the width - running alongside the fence - was laid to lawn once upon a time. But a combination of poor location, incompetence and neglect now means that there is practically no grass left - just a fine selection of weeds and stuff. "Stuff" includes ivy spreading from under the fence, plus what look like off-shoots of next door's trees.

I think I'd like to forget that this was ever "green" and pave it over. Perhaps try to find some vaguely-matching paving slabs to the existing path.

Although I've not done this before, I think I know what I need to do - dig down, put down a layer of sand, level it off, lay the slabs and then grout.

But what really worries me is how to stop the stuff from growing up and spoiling my nice new slabs: some of it looks pretty resistant! What can I do to keep it away?

Any ideas or suggestions - either answers to the direct question, or alternative strategies?

Many thanks

brownfingers

 

Spray with weedkiller, lay a membrane and cover with pea shingle, very simple cost effective and there is hardly any preparation.

 

Hmm, yes, I was wondering about that. Given that I'm a bit of a novice, any pointers about types/thicknesses of membrane, and any suggestions as to what kind of weedkiller you'd suggest?

Many thanks for the response!

brownfingers.