Bleach?
To be honest all the people I know with gravel are taking it up and paving,
as many have small children and falling on gravel can cut quite badly too.
Also if its raining a lot it tends to all end up downhill, and indeed if a
driveway it ends up on the footway causing a hazard and losing it all.
I don't think its used much these days due to the weed aspect alone.
Brian

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The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

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"newshound" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 21/06/2019 10:17, Roger Mills wrote:
I have a patio area/path consisting of a couple of inches of pea gravel
on top of some weed matting.

When I first created this 20-odd years ago, I gave the soil a liberal
dose of sodium chlorate before laying the weed matting. This kept it
weed-free for quite a few years, but the matting has now deteriorated -
allowing a lot of weeds to take root.

I have removed the gravel and the weeds, and am about to take up the
matting and renew it before covering it with new gravel. I need to be
able to neutralise the soil in order to prevent any roots or seeds left
in from growing. I don't think you can buy sodium chlorate any more. Most
of the weedkillers available seem to be of the systemic type - which kill
existing weeds but don't affect the soil. But that's not what I want!

Any bright ideas?

Salt?