We have a strip along one side of our house that is totally useless - it is about 4 feet wide, then the fence - it is a literal BOG from our sprinkler system and the one next door - nothing grows but weeds and I plan, eventually, to have it lined with the dark plastic and covered with stone - you can't even get the mower all the way because the air conditioner condensor is over there! What piss poor planning - I have to spectracide the weeds on that side of the house!
the black plastic covered with rocks idea sounds great. my idea was to plant the flowers so densely that you coudln't see the weeds, that has worked by and large, except for the suckers that shot up to literally 3 feet high sticking up above the flowers