How to keep your paving weed free

The way you lay your paving can have an effect on how easy it is for weeds to grow in the future.

1st Jun 2019

Becki Bell

Paving is a great way to create some hard-wearing space in your garden to build a barbecue, place some patio furniture, or put some pots and planters.

But one of the few weaknesses in paving is the way the gaps between the different paving slabs can provide the perfect shelter for weeds to grow.

This is especially the case with more modern, natural stone-effect paving slabs like York stone, rather than older straight-edge concrete slabs that left little space for weeds and seeds to sneak in between.

If you prefer the wavy-edged look though, there are still some simple steps you can take to keep your paving weed-free.

Preparing your paving

In the first instance, the way you lay your paving can have an effect on how easy it is for weeds to grow in the future.

For instance, it's common practice to lay a membrane under new patios that helps to suppress the growth of weeds from underneath, while still allowing rainwater to drain into the soil below.

Of course this will not prevent weeds from invading your patio from above in the future, so consider if you want to try to control this too.

There are a few options, including filling the joints between your paving slabs with mortar but if you don't like that look, you could also consider sand or fine gravel.

Removing weeds

The good news is that removing weeds from between paving slabs is easy and you can cover even a large area in just a few minutes on a sunny day.

You could opt for weedkillers, but there's growing resistance to using chemicals in the garden when you don't need to - and the manual method can be equally effective.

All you need to do is to pull up weeds carefully so that you get the root out. It's usually just a case of gripping near the base of the stem and pulling firmly.

Pulling the weed up by the root prevents it from growing back in the same place, and if your slabs are laid with sand or gravel between them, it's unlikely that the roots are hard to pull up.