Laying anti-weed ‘mulch’, when to do it?

Hello, I have just started my first garden here, and have already dug/am wanting to dig some flower beds. There is nothing in either front or back garden (east and west facing, and it is a clayey, stoney soil) except for grass or gravel, so am starting from scratch. ... Well, ok, except for an Elm Sapling (can I dig that up, pot it and move it?) and a single, sad looking Bluebell.

I have some permeable underlay (made by Apollo, bought at B&M. This is where you will all no doubt tell me how awful it is or something), and am ready to lay it in the first flowerbed.

My first question is this, when is the best time to do it? Should I do it now whilst the weather is still so warm and dry? Should I wait until it has rained a little so as to trap a bit of moisture? Does it really matter when? And how important is it to trap heat in it?

Also, I am thinking about laying woodchip on top. It says where I have looked to only lay 2-4 inches, but can I lay any of my (now pretty riddled out) soil in between the sheeting and the woodchip, or would that just be counter productive??

Lastly, I am wanting a combination of flowers, bushes and the odd tree or two, so is this set up ok for all of these things??

Thanks.

 

I might be missing something here but why would you want to put weed suppressant under your soil? I don't understand what benefit you would gain by that. My subsoil his hard clay. I had to fork into to make my planting beds deeper.

G.

 

That is a no then, I was just wondering, i.e. overhinking it all, I will leave that alone then, thanks! Just the underlay and the woodchip...

To be fair, I can dig down about 1 and a half feet before hitting a hard layer of, at least, what I have been told is clay - I think there used to be a garden previously, but it was all turfed over a few years back.

 

Maybe you have ESP !
I`ve removed almost all of this awful stuff from my garden now. As I moved it I tried to find a live worm in the resulting ''pudding'' without success.....
Moving on, my garden is now improving - just a little bit more to get rid of

 

ESP?

It is this stuff (I also bought the large amount so I would have some (probably loads) left over at the end if I needed it):

 

I am pretty much a beginner by the way, I forgot to say.

 

ESP is extrasensory perception ! You were expecting someone to tell you how awful the weed membrane is - and I think I did just that.
In my opinion Doug, you will achieve much healthier plants without using that awful stuff, it tends to leave the soil underneath quite sterile. It is good for the air to get in the soil.
You can add compost, manure, leaf mould, to improve the soil. A good dig over is what it needs.

You really don`t need that horrible weed control rubbish.

 

Thanks, it does get pretty wet here, so lots of undesirables like to grow - I need to take a picture of my so called lawn... Sorry, moss... Tomorrow to illustrate better!

 

Doug, it is only a small area to garden, and pulling a few weeds out really won`t take much time, but your soil will suffer if it gets strangled with that stuff, and so will your plants. If it gets very wet, you could add some fine grit when you dig it over to help drainage. Spent mushroom compost is relatively cheap to add if you can find some.

 

Ok, thanks, yes the whole garden is quite small (and the beds will be even smaller once all finished), I will admit. Thanks.

 

You could have a bigger bed if you got rid of the grass

 

What I am actually going to do is get a small shed in the fenced in corner of the back garden, then have a path leading to it diagonally across the grass, so things will be smaller still. I had thought of making a couple of ‘L’ shaped beds arond the edge once it is in place, and what I have dug so far will be added too, but yes, I could so easily ‘un L’ the beds and remove more of the grass towards the path.
Don’t want to do too much though. I’ll see.

That is probably complete gobbledegook unless you see pictures of the back garden.

 

Pictures are always helpful . I'm not a fan of weed control membrane for the already stated reasons. It can be used as a temporary measure to suppress an area of weeds but depending on what is growing it can take months or even a couple of years for the weeds to completely die off. And you won't have any nice flowers to look at whilst it's laid. If you only have a small garden then hand weeding might be the better option and working to improve your soil. Clay is quite rich and there are lots of plants that like it. Making a plan of what you want to achieve with your garden is good too.

 

If it's an Elm, it's most likely the result of suckering from a nearby Elm tree (or remains of one). If you simply cut it off you're likely to get more Elms growing through that membrane. You would need to remove the sucker right back beyond your bed.

It probably hasn't got its own root system yet, so cutting it off would kill it.

P.S. But, looking at your location, I think there's a variety of Elm in Scotland that doesn't spread by suckering EDIT: Ulmus glabra - Wikipedia