Placing stepping stones on your lawn

Stepping stones are a great way to create a path through your lawn without being too dominant. They can also help draw your eye down through the garden.

If you are planning on setting stepping stones into a new lawn, it is advisable to wait until the lawn is fully developed, as it will give you the best results.
The reason for this being that new lawns will sag a little as it settles so if you were to place them straight away, the stones over time will sit proud of the lawn, which can become a nuisance when mowing.

The first thing t do is lay out the stepping stones on the lawn, spacing them out evenly in the direction you want them.

Once you are happy with how it looks, walk across them to make sure the spacing of the stones is comfortable to walk.

When you are satisfied, using a spade, cut around the edge of the first stone.
Now move the stone to the side and remove the grass sod you have just cut out.
Remove some of the soil if necessary, as the depth you are aiming for is about two inches below the thickness of the stone.To finish, put a few lumps of mortar mix in the hole and place the stone on top.
Then using a rubber mallet, tap stone down till it is flush with lawn level.

Mypex ground cover and tips on how to fix around edging.

Mypex Ground Cover
Mypex Ground Cover is a multi-purpose woven
fabric designed to function effectively in a wide range of horticultural
applications. Unlike conventional ground cover, it offers the grower a number of
important advantages. MyPex Ground Cover is manufactured from 100% UV
Stabilised polypropylene. It resists tear and puncture and is unaffected by normal
extremes of temperature. It is designed to give complete weed suppression in a
natural way.
MyPex Ground Cover’s porosity controls moisture and helps
protect roots from the spread of fungal diseases and
root rots.
MyPex aids accurate pot spacing, the green and white marker
stripes spaced at 25cm intervals lengthways help ensure
that pots are placed to ensure adequate growth space
and irrigation. There are also green stripes every 50 cm
across the roll
MyPex is easy to handle and install. It can be laid onto
the ground with a minimum of preparation.

Tips on how to fix weed mat along the edge of the garden bed

One draw back of using weed mat is that the ends of the matting along the edging is usually left simply trimmed to the edge, often resulting the matting being visible and allowing weeds to grow along the edge.
Here is a method I use to help prevent this from happening.



First of all, when roiling out the weed mat I would recommend using pegs to hold down the weed mat, especially in areas where there is a gradient, as they not only help hold the mating in place while you are installing it, but they also stop the matting moving around when you are walking around on it.
If pegs are unavailable use lengths of wire (in this case bull wire) cut into lengths and bent around. Then simply nail them in place.
When cutting the mat to fit the bed, make sure to leave a few inches overlapping the borders. If the garden bed is finished with a timber edge, simply use a trowel (or something similar) to push the ends of the mat tight along the timber edge.

When finishing along a stone or turf edge, first clear a small trench along the border

Then, leaving the weed mat laying out of the garden bed, lay the end of it in the trench then back fill the trench on top of the weed mat, and give it a good stamp.

Then pull the weed mat back over the bed and secure with a few pins.