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To do a pea gravel patio right, it is incredibly important to prepare a strong structural base layer. The crushed rock immediately beneath the pea gravel should be well compacted to help it support the weight of patio furniture, strollers, and even foot traffic. The pea gravel should be a decorative sprinkling over the structural base (not a 6″ deep layer that turns your patio into a ball pit of marbles). A gravel driveway is essentially a larger iteration of a pea gravel path or patio, plus some added requirements to support cars and trucks. But like the patio, it doesn’t make sense to use pea gravel alone.
Pea gravel is generally a low-maintenance, inexpensive, well-draining surface choice. Pea gravel looks as at home around modern architecture as it does in cottage gardens. All it needs is a quick rake now and then to keep the stones in place. This raspberry garden has paths mulched with pea gravel to keep down weeds and discourage enthusiastic raspberry canes from growing outside their planter box.
Grade 6 CA11 Gravel (3/4″ River Rock)
The colour of the pea gravel depends on the colour of the parent rock material. If you’re buying a yard or two of pea gravel, it generally needs to be transported in a heavy-duty utility trailer. You may also be able to buy a more-easily transported 5-gallon bucket of about $15 bucks worth of gravel. An average 0.5 cubic foot bag of pea gravel costs about $5 per bag.
Mary Jane has been featured by publications such as Real Simple, Mother Earth News, Homes & Gardens, Heirloom Gardener, and Family Handyman. Product color and particle size may have slight variations from these photos.
Pea Gravel Garden
You may wish to give the pile a bit of a rinse to get some of the dust off before placing it. This will also help you get a good idea what the gravel looks like . Gravel is an inexpensive driveway hardscaping material. Despite all your efforts to keep the pea gravel in place, some of it will sink, stray, or get permanently borrowed.
Pea gravel does have a tendency to stray from its original position. It really does need some kind of edging to keep it in place if it runs alongside a lawn. Weed trimmers and lawnmowers can toss stray pea gravel . I ordered 3 rolls of this wire mesh from Lowes online, and picked it up curbside.
Pea Gravel from Home Depot
A strong structural foundation base layer is critical for a driveway. Don’t make a pea gravel driveway without first laying a structural base layer of compacted crush. Pea gravel is used in landscaping for paths, patios, and other areas with foot traffic, as well as a decorative mulch. Here are some pea gravel landscaping ideas to help you add this lovely hardscaping material to your yard. The uniformly-sized, smooth pebbles are used as hardscaping material for gravel patios and walkways. Let’s look at what pea gravel is and the many ways it can be used in your landscaping plan.
While pea gravel is highly ornamental and smooth to walk on, it doesn’t provide the same structural support as a properly prepared base of compacted crushed stone. Just imagine your wheelbarrow sinking down into a pile of marbles. Pea gravel performs best when its used either between structural paving stones or on top of a properly-compacted base. Pea gravel is used in landscaping as a hardscaping surface material for well-travelled areas like patios, walkways, and playgrounds.
How to Clean Pea Gravel
It was fine though because remember we wanted to enjoy ourselves. I think it took us about 5 hours, with me measuring and marking (and double-checking myself), and the hubs making the cuts. Honestly, this part took longer than I thought it would. We spent the first day of our project doing all the cutting. I wouldn’t have wanted to do that during normal life, let alone. Getting everything we needed would have required us to visit all three stores, gathering some of the pieces at each one.
Garden design includes pea gravel surfaces in many different styles of gardens. It’s generally used as a surface covering in areas where weeds are to be discouraged or where foot traffic is expected. As above, pea gravel on garden paths and access areas does require a structural support base layer of compacted crushed rock.
Pea gravel walkways can consist entirely of pea gravel or can incorporate paving stones within the gravel . Most of the battle for keeping pea gravel in place can be won by installing a hard edging material. The photo above shows a pea gravel and paver pathway with a cedar edging. This edging is simply a 2″x6″ cedar board sunk into the ground to separate the lawn from the pea gravel path. When pea gravel arrives in bulk , it is generally quite dusty.
The natural weathering process of the stream bed creates a smooth texture that is lovely to walk on. It can be a mass mulch in a Xeriscape garden or can be used around single specimen trees or other ornamental purposes. You can even use pea gravel as a mulch in flower gardens – particularly perennial flower gardens with native plants in areas with hot summers. The gravel mulch will help stabilize the soil temperature and hold water in the soil when things get really dry. Also referred to as pea stone or pea pebbles, each little rock of pea gravel is just a bit bigger than a pea . Pea gravel perhaps looks more like really large peas, like edamame or something of that size.
Standard bulk pea gravel generally costs about $50 per cubic yard when purchased in bulk at a landscape supplier. Pea gravel sold at a garden centre is generally more expensive – up to $100 per cubic yard – but there are more choices available. Garden centres may stock pea gravel of varying sizes and colours to suit your landscape design.
The last thing we wanted was to go to all the trouble of building this well-fortified garden with a fence, only to have some little guys tunnel up from the bottom! And since this is definitely one of those things you can’t go back and add later, we decided “better safe than sorry”. And we definitely have seen several voles and their trails. I haven’t seen any moles, but in the far back part of our property, I do notice several holes where something tunnels.
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