My experience with pavers is that no matter what you put down under them, eventually windblown soil moves into the cracks and weeds begin to flourish. I did my front walk with pavers on a 2-3" bed of sand. By the 3rd year it was a weed trap - and getting them out is a pain! I have been trying to find something to plant in the cracks that will be more aggressive than the weeds, but haven't found the solution yet.

I would go with the gravel over weed barrier myself, but it probably has its own problems - I just haven't encountered them.

All of the methods/material you are considering will have a weed control problem. The weed seeds will land on the sand, gravel, or between the cracks and germinate. I recommend pavers because they will match your other walks. You can control the weeds with boiling water, weed begone, or pulling.

Pavers + creeping thyme. Fragrance as you walk - BONUS!

Weed barriers and/or plastic break down faster than you would think, and gravel gives uncertain footing. It's a pain to roll a garden cart or wheelbarrow over it. And its ugly.

I've never had that much trouble with weeds where I've placed pavers or stepping stones - just set it up so there's enough room to run the mower through there if nothing else. (I personally have never mastered the Art of Weed Whacking, so the mower is my favorite weeding tool).

Here is a link that might be useful: Some design ideas

This post was edited by zensojourner on Sat, Oct 11, 14 at 3:45

After years of having woodchips on my potager paths and having to replenish them yearly we finally went with pavers. This was the first season for them so I don't know how they'll hold up over time, but the woodchips quickly became bedding for weeds and the yearly refurbishing got time-consuming and expensive. Another nice thing about pavers is that I suspect they also provide a damp area for desirable plant roots to flourish.

Pavers+creeping thyme......There is a site called steppables.com that has all sorts of groundcovers you can walk on! Nancy

Have both crushed stone and slate pathways. This article might help.

https://theherbladyblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/01/how-i-control-weeds-in-my-stone-pathways/

I use pine straw in mine.

I have river rock around my garden cottage - it is fantastic! I put packing sand under it then black plastic over that then the river rock. If a few weeds come up, its so easy to just pull them out or spritz them with roundup. Its great! I have pavers in my potting shed/chicken yard. These also work great - no areas in cracks for weeds to get into, no trouble with these at all. I use pea gravel in walkways with huge round stones to step on. Pea gravel, to me, is hard to walk on. River rock is much better.

Judith