h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A few gardening programs over here in the U.K. have mentioned water-permeable plastic for use under gravel. This stuff allows water through, so you can cut slits in it and plant through it, but it stops seeds getting through to the soil underneath, hence preventing weeds. I would like to use some in our garden, which we are currently working on, but web searches for it come up blank. The only reference I can find to anything like it is a reference to 'landscape fabric', which serves a similar purpose, in an American gardening web site.

Has any British H2G2 researcher used the stuff (or anything like it), or do you know anyone that has? If so, where did you get it from? What's it called, e.g., trade name, whatever?

You might be better off with heavy sack-cloth - it will be water permiable and also keep the seeds out of the ground but it will also gradually decay (over decades) so that you aren't harming the environment - as a nation we bury enough plastic without doing it on purpose .

A good thick layer of bark chippings also reduces weed growth and smells nice (to me, anyway) after a bit of rain.

Bark chippings may reduce weed growth, but they don't stop it. And where do I get sack-cloth from, especially in the quantities needed to cover an area at least 5 metres square. Besides, the plastic isn't buried, as such. You level the ground, spread the plastic, and then put gravel on the top. If you want to get rid of it you just scape the gravel out of the way.

Anyway, it's not going to be a problem if I can't get any!

The stuff you are after comes in various guises, one of which is like a woven mat of plastic strips called Terram, which you can buy from garden centres, it comes on a roll up to about 4 metres wide. You can also buy from DIY stores ( B&Q used to sell it) a fibre sheeting, forget what it is called, and comes in about 1.5m widths, for only about a couple of pounds per metre.
Happy hunting.