A printed ultra-wideband antenna that provides wide bandwidth of 2.6–10.58 GHz, with sharp triple notches at 3.3–3.92, 5.1–5.4 and 5.68–6.02 GHz to eliminate the WiMAX and WLAN interferences, is proposed. Triple notches are implemented by embedding split ring shaped slot and unique circular split ring resonator pairs in the antenna. The antenna provides monopole like radiation patterns with gain variation of 2.5–5 dBi and average radiation efficiency of 86% in its pass band. Wide bandwidth of the antenna makes it well suited in low depth subsurface scanning ground penetrating radar (GPR) applications where better lateral resolution is desired. To improve the depth resolution, the antenna is integrated with reflective type frequency selective surfaces. Overall gain augmentation of 3 dBi with maximum gain increment of nearly 6 dBi at 5.5 GHz is achieved by adding the FSS. The antenna-FSS composite structure provides impedance band of 2.52–10.66 GHz with triple notches at 3.26–3.84, 5.1–5.38 and 5.66–5.95 GHz. Performance of the composite structure is evaluated in close proximity of sandy soil test bed by keeping thin aluminium sheet at the bottom of sand. Adequate VSWR, transfer function and group delay responses ensure the eligibility of proposed antenna to work for GPR.