Ideas for making this outdoor space low maintenance

[ivanh]

So we have this dog run up the side of the house, where we store the composter and where the gas water heater lives. It's a neglected space that gets overgrown in a matter of months. Once a year we generally pull all the vegetation out, take it back to dirt on a weed mat and then the whole cycle continues.

We want to do something with this space to make it more presentable. It's not really usable as it's not wide enough yet we are keen to do something, even if just to lower the amount of maintenance.

Has anyone else dealt with a similar problem or have any ideas of what we could do? We have toyed with the idea of concreting it all over but it seems to me an expensive and rather sterile solution.

[BradN]

Hi @ivanh . I'm not sure about drainage. Perhaps the oracles @EricL and @MitchellMc or one of our other posters might be able to advise you on that.

One thing to bear in mind with concreting an area like that is that it can make it hard to access water pipes or drains underneath. If you need to repair a leak you'll have to cut a great big square out of it with a concrete saw - or pay someone else to do it.  You've a got a hot water service and guttering downpipes there - are there pipes underground as well?

Brad

[MitchellMc]

@ivanh, 

As @Jason mentioned, there shouldn't be any additional drainage needed if weed matting and pebbles are used. Water transfers through weed matting quite easily and will then drain away naturally as it has been. However, if you do have some drainage issues at the moment, then it would be best to address these with some agricultural line before making over the area.

Mitchell