Rolling stones
DECORATIVE aggregates, or stones as we commonly know them, are a fascinating addition to any landscaping theme and offer a whole range of aesthetic and practical advantages for a relatively small spend.
They add a crisp edge to lawns and borders, texture underfoot; a surface for walking on in all weather and a rain permeable mulch. The choice of material is vast and includes everything from dramatically coloured slate chips to velvety tumbled pebbles, the glassy glitter of broken flint, sumptuously coloured gravel mixes and fine flowing gritty ground cover from quarries across the world.
You can use these materials for:
* Creating pathways
* Covering plant borders as an attractive mulch to suppress weeds, creating a constant temperature and retaining moisture
* Defining and enhancing walkways and borders as a flanking material
* Dropped in as a contrast to areas of paved stone
* Adding a security element, (gravel is relatively loud and crunchy to walk across, and will alert any keen eared dog, or person)
* Damming into raised areas behind say, sleepers, to create variety and in a raised patio area
* Lining the base of a pond. Highly coloured cobbles shine out like jewels in submerged situations.
* Combined with rockery stones to create an Alpine garden or flowing around the base of a dramatic rockery
COLOURWISE: If you’re looking for a very natural look, vouch for colours and stone types that mimic the stone local to your area. This might be a plum coloured granite, lichen feathered limestone or a golden quartzite stone. In rural areas you’ll notice walling, stone walled banks and even house piers created from regional quarries and field stone, to give you a lead.
Deep black, glittering white quartz styles and synthetically coloured stones can offer contemporary dash, but applied over large areas and without restraint they will deliver all the charm of a grave-site. Subtle mixes are offered in every imaginable shade and darker golds and medium to dark grey stones will set off foliage. If you choose beach pebbles buy from a reputable source.
PROFILE POINTS: When choosing your stone, especially the smaller varieties, it’s worth considering the material as a flowing liquid. Once on the ground, rounder stones and diminutive shingles will move aside underfoot whereas a more angular stone will ‘bind’ in place, making sharper sided rough stones more suitable for walking and driving areas. Around 14-20mm is good for driving and pedestrian areas. Think about how you are going to line the ground beneath and frame it in to keep it roughly in place. Flat granite paddlestones (50-100mm) can be heaped up into quasi-geological scree-scapes and set around features, holding their arrangement, but will slide underfoot.
SOURCING STONE: Washed stone suitable for garden projects does not come cheap, but the fact that it’s ‘clean’ stone is important. If you elect for the cheapest crushed stone from a local quarry (and at prices as low as €7 per ton it’s an attractive option) all the muck, seeds, weeds and dust comes with the stone delivered by the truck. Over time, a whole new horticultural environment will need spraying out and the local weeds will set up home in the considerable amount of gritty soil on offer.
In dedicated landscaping products the cheapest prices beyond a small lorry load of several tons of loose stone are for a bulk bagged load of a ton. You may get a discount for a bigger order. Check with the supplier as to just how close they can get your purchase to its intended area with the lorry and crane. Twenty to 25, 20kg bags will be easier to transport around the garden, so pitch convenience against cost for small lots.
A gravel pathway is a relatively easy addition and can be set in any shape you like. When you’re moving the stone to its position keep in mind that even half a barrowful will be extremely heavy.
Use a 14mm-20mm aggregate and allow about 40 kgs per square metre of pathway. When using a slope, stone set in a sleeper step will help retention.
* If you want a curving, organic flow to your path map out its route along flat ground with a hose pipe to give you a form. Mark out with strings and wood pegs.
* Cut a pathway around 1m wide and 10-15cm cm deep with a square spade. Lift grass sods out carefully and consider if you can use them elsewhere.
* Ensure the base is as flat and free of lumps and bumps as possible. A pounded hardcore base is the only solution to a very wet, yielding surface
* Using a suitable weed barrier (sold by the roll from around €10 per 20m), line the trench.
* Use pegs or staples to keep the barrier in position.
* Line the edges of your pathway if you like with larger stones, bricks (set edge to edge) or sleepers set inside your trench.
* Set some stepping stones at a comfortable stride along the path on top of the liner. You can use fancy ones or simple cement pavers.
* Fill your path trench with your chosen aggregate to 3-5cm using a wheelbarrow. Rake flat.
* Clean off the stone with a sprinkling from a hose, not moving it but freshening it up.
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