Gravel Bedding (34 Photos): Ideas For A Gravel Bed With Stones. How To Do It Yourself? Choosing Decorative Gravel For Flower Beds

2024 Author: Beatrice Philips | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-07 13:49

Interestingly decorated flower beds, no doubt, decorate the space of the site. Currently, bulk materials are often used for landscape design. Gravel is popular, which includes small, large and medium stones. The decorative gravel zone consists of stones and plants arranged in a specific order.

Pros and cons

Consider the pros and cons of decorative flower beds using gravel. Users highlight the following benefits:

• gravel protects the soil from overheating in summer, and protects it from freezing in winter;
• cultivation of a garden is possible in different parts of the site;
• there is always the possibility of creating a flower garden of the desired size;
• the growth of weeds is reduced;
• affordable technology for developing flower beds that anyone can handle;
• arrangement of a flower garden does not need large financial costs.

But the disadvantages include difficulties in cleaning a gravel area:

• it is very difficult to clean it from fallen leaves, grass;

• in winter, difficulties arise in the course of clearing snow and ice;
• rodents destroy and dig up the embankment.

Ideas for creating a gravel bed

The graceful design of the site will help to change its appearance and give an individual style. For that so that the decorative area does not look tasteless, it is necessary to coordinate the design with your structures on the site and other landscape.

So, near buildings, a flower garden of warm shades or with the addition of a pattern looks great. Bright plants will complement the picture with their beauty.

Gravel is well suited for mulching, it is poured around the plants, dividing the flower garden into "islands ". It can be used if you want to plant flowers closer to each other, since special attention is paid to the placer. To improve the look of your gravel bed, you can scatter beautiful large stones randomly or lay out a pattern.

Another option for a picturesque gravel-based flower bed can be flowers in flowerpots . The containers can be buried in the ground and covered with gravel or placed on a level with the filling.

The main advantage of this version of a gravel bed is the prospect of changing the location of flowerpots.

Choosing decorative gravel

In modern landscape design, decorative gravel occupies a high position. Gravel is a natural material that is formed in the process of crushing rocks . Allocate coarse and small gravel, its size ranges from 10 to 70 mm. The color palette is also varied: from white to orange and black. Flowerbeds with white backing look impressive, but colored material is in great demand. The coloring of gravel in the industry is carried out with special pigments that are safe for both the environment and humans.

Ordinary crushed stone can be made decorative with your own hands by painting it in suitable colors in accordance with the design of the flower garden . It is not difficult to color the material - the main thing is to choose high-quality dyes so that the color of the stones is preserved for a long time.

Alternatively, you can consider a special aerosol enamel, acrylic or alkyd-type paints are also suitable. The staining takes place as follows:

1. first you need to wash the stones;
2. then paint over them on both sides and wait until they dry completely;
3. the aerosol is re-sprayed or painted with paint if a dull shade is obtained, but it is important to do this only after the first layer has dried;
4. if the gravel is fine, it is immersed in a container and mixed with paint there.

Which plants are right for you?

Creating a decorative flower garden is a creative process. When choosing plants, it is advisable to observe a sense of proportion, not to spoil the harmonious picture . But it must also be borne in mind that if there are more stones, then the view will seem empty.

A variety of gravel garden makes it possible to use plants of various types . When choosing plants, they take into account the design of the flower bed and the general landscape.

There are many crops that can be used when creating a garden, for example, you can make a flower garden with conifers. Cypress, boxwood, yucca look especially elegant on light shades.

Pastel shades of blue-blue, purple and white with the addition of hints of yellow and purple plants are considered popular.

The most suitable plants are thyme, physostegia, sedum, lunaria, geranium, badan, perennial asters, tansy . In ornamental gardens, trees and shrubs look good (cotoneaster, dyeing gorse, tanning skumpia). They are used in minimal quantities so as not to overpower the beauty of the created look.

The good taste of the owner of the site is emphasized by architectural plants that surprise with their originality, for example, Olympic mullein, teasel, feather grass, fennel, angelica, makleia.

Tall grasses will look spectacular, for example, Chinese miscanthus, paniculata gypsophila, bluehead, tall Veronica, cottonweed, monarda, goldenrod.

Cereals look delightful in decorative compositions . Blue fescue against the background of large stones will help to create accents in the landscape. The blue cereals of its delicate and slender leaves will not go unnoticed.

How to do it yourself?

It is not difficult to make a chic gravel bed on the site with your own hands. It is important to follow the step-by-step instructions for its device:

1. it is necessary to outline the area where the flower garden will be broken;
2. select borders, mark with a rope;
3. remove the top layer of soil to a depth of about 20 centimeters;
4. remove all plant roots on the developed site (in order not to leave perennial weeds, the site must be moistened and left for a week, if they hatch, remove);
5. dig up the area and install a drainage layer;
6. compact the earth;
7. lay a layer of geotextile on the site, which will keep the gravel from subsidence and prevent perennial weeds from developing;
8. cut out a planting site in the fabric, dig a hole and plant a plant (you can plant plants in special containers that protect the roots of flowers or shrubs from damage);
9. cover the geotextile with a layer of gravel approximately 5 millimeters thick.

The gravel bed is ready. It will be an excellent decoration for the landscape.