What type of gravel for landscaping

Color is another consideration when selecting the right gravel for your garden. Choose a gravel color that works with the other hardscape elements in your landscape, be they brick, stone or wood. You can also use warm-toned gravels to visually warm and lighten a yard and act as a backdrop for lush green foliage and blue and purple flowers. Cool-toned gravels, like those made of crushed slate, make bright green leaves and pale blossoms stand out through contrast.

Do you wish to use gravel as the primary ground cover for your garden? If using decomposed granite or path fines in this application, buy it without a stabilizer. Types of Gravel Pea gravel. Perhaps the most popular gravel type, pea gravel is useful for pathways, patios and as a ground cover. The stones are rounded and roughly pea-sized, from one-eighth to three-eighths inch across, and come in dark gray, medium gray, sand and caramel brown.

Pea gravel is known for that delicious crunch sound underfoot, but the rounded pebbles do tend to roll as you walk, making it a poor choice for areas with wheel traffic.

Brassfield limestone in a Cincinnati garden Crushed rock. Unlike pea gravel, which has been tumbled to produce rounded edges, crushed rock typically features more jagged edges. These edges can be an advantage for helping the gravel compact and lock in place, reducing traveling and rolling underfoot.

The gravel still crunches, but less so. Sizes typically range from one-eighth to three-eighths inch or larger, and it comes in many colors — including off-white, slate gray, reddish brown, tan and buff. Decomposed granite and path fines. They range from sand-size grains to one-eighth- inch particles and form a compact, stable surface, appropriate for rolling anything with wheels. Colors range from warm, dusty tans to dark slate, red-brown and bluish tones. The material works well for covering pathways, patios, driveways or as a ground cover in low-water gardens.

Note: The small particles can collect in wheels or shoe treads and track inside homes. The stabilized option can cost up to 50 percent more, but the expense is worth it if you want to create a stable pathway or patio. Drain rock.

There are better fillers than gravel to use between pavers. See more of this garden in our Gardenista book. Gravel can be a drag if you have to drag garbage cans. Above: Maria of the gardening blog, Almbacken, installed a black fence to serve as backdrop to her Swedish garden and a clever cache for her garbage and recycling units. Photograph by Maria Dremo Sundstrom. Product summary Landmaster Landmaster 4 ft. Join the conversation.

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Ken and Jean Victor Linsteadt love symmetry. So many gardeners these days are looking for ways. Fragrance is such an important component in garden. If used on paths and driveways, they can make walking down your path in bare feet somewhat hazardous, an issue that might also be a problem if you have pets. The other significant disadvantage of brick chips over natural gravel is that in the future, if you want to update your landscaping, removing your brick chips will come with a hefty price tag.

This is opposed to many other natural products, which you can often on-sell or at least find somebody willing to take them away to reuse at no cost to yourself. A post shared by Mary Nethery thegiddygardener. Whether you are looking to line a pathway, improve the look and drainage of your driveway, or define a garden bed, crushed granite gravel is an attractive, inexpensive, and hard-wearing material that is well worth considering. Consisting of larger particles than the decomposed granite, crushed granite gravel drains particularly well.

It is also an ideal paving material for projects that need to cover a large area or areas where puddling needs to be avoided.

With a soft, natural look, it usually comes in a light grey color but can also be found in earthy brown or tan shades that blend well with a garden that needs a natural look.

Reasonable inexpensive and easy to install and maintain, crushed granite gravel is a great material for experienced and novice landscapers of any budget. As with many stone materials, you need to keep in mind a couple of drawbacks. Most notably, as it consists of hundreds of small rocks, it will wear quite quickly, particularly in heavy use areas, and if placed in areas near the entrance to your house, you will likely carry some of it inside on the soles of your shoes.

Decomposed granite is a little like gravel but is much finer and almost sandy in texture. It is formed by the natural weathering and erosion of solid granite rocks and has been a staple in landscape design for years.

Decomposed granite is usually used to cover paths, driveways, and other open surfaces, such as patios, and can be placed around trees and garden beds in the same way that you might use a wood mulch.

As with crushed granite gravel, it is commonly gray but can also be found in a range of reddish tan to brown colors. Decomposed granite is generally available in three different forms: loose natural , stabilized, and resin coated. Flagstone makes for a fantastic alternative to concrete or commercially manufactured pavers. It can be used to create many different hard-surfaced areas, including driveways, patios, and garden paths, and has traditionally been used to make roof tiles, walls, fences, and even headstones.

Flagstone will be particularly appealing to people who want a natural, earthy look in their landscaping. While flagstone is itself a specific type of sedimentary rock, many other types of large stone materials can be used the same way, including slate, limestone, travertine, sandstone, and bluestone.

While there is no doubt that flagstone is an attractive paving material, it is also quite expensive. It can also be difficult to install without the added expense of hiring a stonemason or an experienced landscaper, as piecing together naturally occurring rocks of different sizes and thicknesses can be extremely challenging. Lava rock is quite literally small pieces of solidified lava from a volcano and is often used as a decorative rock alternative to wood mulch.

Being quite brittle, it is not suitable for use on driveways, paths, or patios apart from being added for color and definition of a pathway around large concrete or rock steppingstones.

Lava rock, which generally comes in either red or black tones, is also useful as low-maintenance ground cover for large open spaces that might otherwise be grassed. If used in this way, it is important to use a good-quality landscape fabric and edging that can help keep the lava rock in place. One important thing to remember about using lava rock and any other type of small rock is that these rocks can pose a choking hazard for both pets and young children.

Marble chips are useful as a stone mulch around plants and gardens but can be used as crushed gravel for garden paths. They can bounce back light, so in damp, dark winter conditions they can create a lot of desired light.

The smooth edging is particularly suitable for surrounding shorelines and pool surrounds in home environments. Your email address will not be published. Types of Landscape Gravel Landscape gravel is hugely versatile not only on the basis of its numerous uses but also because of its availability in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors.

Decomposed granite Decomposed granite is weathered down granite that has broken down into smaller rocks and silt. River Rock River rock is typically rounded, big and smooth that comes in shades of gray or brown. Lava Rock Lava rock is lightweight, porous, irregular shaped rocks actually harvested from inactive volcanoes. Crushed gravel Crushed gravel rocks are irregular rock fragments that are a little bit larger than decomposed gravel and much less smooth than pea gravel.

Washed gravel Washed gravel like Del Rio and Lodi come in attractive speckled colors like grey, white, gold and tan. White Gravel This variety of landscape gravel is used around gardens and flowed beds to highlight certain areas.