Weedcloth for pathways?

I have a plan to put 2 foot wide pebble/rock pathways around the perimeter of my house so that it can be painted and repaired without tromping on plants. I have been collecting rocks as I dig up new garden area, that range from pebble size to about as big as a potato. My idea was to weed the ground well, put down landscape cloth, and put the rocks on top of that. Looking around for the right weed barrier fabric for this job has become confusing, since there are so many different products. I want to choose something that will work to keep the weeds out as much as possible and will last as long as possible without being extremely expensive. Does anyone have any suggestions, or experiences with these products, positive or negative.? Thanks

I never notice brand names on things like that, but the thicker the weed cloth is the longer it should last and the better job it should do keeping weeds from growing so I'd pay attention to the thickness probably more than some of the other attributes. One thing I might suggest though is to think about the rocks that you want to use--the larger potato sized rocks can be hard to walk on, so I'd use them for the edges but use the smaller rocks in the middle. Even the pebbles can be harder to walk on though--I had a yard full of pebble size rocks at my old house, and here at my current house I decided to go with crushed gravel instead which is very small rocks that you tamp down and they pack together very well, and those are definitely easier to walk on than the pebbles. Or you could consider making the center of the path from flagstones so there's a good surface to walk on, then the type of rocks you use doesn't matter.

Don't forget to slope it away from the foundation some.

If you never want to have plants there, you could use tarp, plastic, old shingles, upside down carpet strips...

I have woven style fabric with 2" - 3" rocks covering a large shrub garden. It isn't even sloped very much, but, I slid and fell last week while blowing leaves.

The stuff ecrane is talking about goes by different names in different areas: crusher run, fines & chat are names I have seen. I think it's also called "quarter down" as in 1/4 inch and smaller. It is great to work around. Seems to hold well in downpours and is easily raked smooth.

Thanks for your suggestions. I'm definitely going to slope away from the foundation, especially since it is plywood skirting. That is part of the reason for the path separating garden from house...don't want to be watering the plywood. I may go with 5 oz weedcloth (the thickest I could find) or see if I can come up with a source of old shingles. If I use my free garden rocks, I'll probably have some instability problems, so will look into the price of crushed gravel. One question I have about it, is it easy to pull weeds out of when they inevitably sprout?

We have used plastic sheeting in our garden. The only areas where a weed pokes through rarely is at a seam between two strips of plastic.

It is Very easy to pull the weeds out. the roots don't grow (very well)through the landscape fabric so when dirt gets in your rocks, the weeds pull out without a problem.

I only mentioned the shingles & etc. in case you had anything waiting around to recycle or wanted to go the less spendy route.

Former owners of my place used heavy plastic (visqueen) under the walks. It lasted 4 or 5 years. I have to use roundup on them now as the rocks aren't that thick and the plastic has degraded into small chips.

The best ground cover for your purpose is the heavy duty woven fabric that you can buy by the meter at the garden store, it normally comes with a square design printed on it for ease at cutting the size, this heavy duty fabric is easy to lay into the strips you want for pathways, as it allows water to soak away and lets some air into the soil etc, where you need to overlap the joints, dont scrimp as an overlay of about 6-8 inches works best especially if you are going to lay rocks/stones etc on top, I agree with everything Ecrane has mentioned as regards safety for walking/working with larger stoned, but you can use these as anchors along the outer edges and place smaller chipped gravel etc in the middle and the large stones will prevent them from being thrown over the edges, you can get the gravel cheeply enough in different sizes and colours to enhance the house walls etc, dont place plastic close to weather boards/foundations as this will keep too much moisture against the house and could lead to rot, the good thing about the fabric mentioned, should you need to, you can rake some stones off and role it back to inspect/plant etc and then just place it back again, as for using ladders etc, the smaller gravel will not slide about but larger stones will, also weeds will get a firm root in between larger stones before you notice them where as with smaller gravel, each spring you rake the gravel and this dislodges any small germinating weeds and tidies up the gravel.I would use gravel to a depth of about 3-4 inches for a good ground cover and work footings. good luck. WeeNel.