[Shipping up to Boston]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

I'm not a fan of huge beds or yards of stone. I do have volcanic lava rocks inside a small circle on my flowerbed, which I've used curved stone to isolate it. I put a potted plant on top of it. It's just for decoration and I still have to pull the weeds out of it several times each season. The rest of the flower bed is the thick big pine bark chunks (not shredded) on top of whatever crappy soil the garden came with, which apparently is partly on top of some old nasty weed barrier cloth, with more soil under it. Who knows. I still have to weed the bed, I do it by hand. I don't use "weedkiller" at all. But the impatiens and vinca grow wild and gorgeous, and I have other plants in pots between the pinks and whites, and the squirrels brought me some lovely elephant ears as a focal point on one side of the bed.

I would much prefer to use cedar bark but none of the stores had any in stock when I was preparing the season's planting. I just LOVE the smell of cedar, and ants and cockroaches hate it.

Love cedar!
Wonder if eucalyptus would have the same effect if available