Laying Gravel

Hi all,

Have begun the process of removing grass in my front garden, have tilled the compacted soil for levelling. The bit we are doing is a square and we are going to replant a hedge at the front, have some raised beds down one side and a square of plants in the middle. The rest we are going to put down gravel for, only some slabs for pots. Foot traffic will be for weeding/planting/maintenance etc, so light in terms of footfall.

I've been trying to look around for how to do this properly and would like some advice. My plan would be to:

Tamp down soil
Make some mortar and lay slabs
Put down weed membrane on the rest
Add stones

The beds/hedge have a small border fence, just slatted with some spike in to ground. They will also be mulched with bark.

However, I've seen some places say I need substrate, some say sand and mot1 stuff, others say it's fine. The soil is clay.

Any advice please? Thanks

 

The gravel - recommend 20mm - will be fine on the weed membrane, on the soil. Don't lay it too deep - my neighbour has about 100mm or more depth and it's like walking on a pebble beach, makes the postman take the long way round