Black plastic sheeting to suppress weeds - needs to be thick and heavy - any recommendations?

[Fauve]

I know I could use carpet but I'm going for a quick fix here. Locally I can only see quite flimsy stuff - I want some thick stuff, ideally some that will stay down on its own, not needing bricks, stones etc to weight it down. Any ideas?

[southeastastra]

use the cheap stuff and put loads of bark on top, that's worked for me

[Fauve]

Thanks. I know I sound fussy, but I don't like bark that much, it gets all over the edges of the plastic. But I could put gravel type stuff on it.

[MerlinsBeard]

pond liner.

[Fauve]

Now that is an idea. Have you used it, mumofmonsters? Is it expensive?

[MerlinsBeard]

actually it was on offer when we got it! works great but does need weighting down. We had ours in for 5 years before we pulle dit out and it had worked well, only a few holes with weeds poking thru which is where birds had been digging when our bark got a bit sparce!

[Filchymindedvixen]

pond liner is about £3 a thingy (metre?) I was eyeing some up the other day. Also go to local builders yard, they sell thick black sheeting for not much money. I got huge off cut for free by batting my eyelashes a bit.

[Dazy]

I wouldn't use just any plastic sheeting - I used some plastic sheets (like you use when decorating) in the garden and over the winter they perished into lots of little bits. When I came to move them they just disintegrated into a right mess which then blew all over the garden.

Also, with pond liner you'd need to think about drainage or you'll get a new pond!

IMO I'd stick to the proper black porous stuff that you get from the garden centre...I don't remember it being expensive.

[Fauve]

Thanks, I'll think about the pond liner; and I'd better go to a proper, biggish garden centre for a choice of sheeting.

[southeastastra]

you can get loads of things apart from bark too or different colours

[Fauve]

Thanks - I quite fancy a white gravel. I'm going to have lots of lavender growing through part of it.