In springtime many of us look to the garden with the idea of sprucing it up a bit in preparation for the summer. We all love to have a beautiful garden that our neighbours can admire, but sometimes we don't always want to have to put in the considerable work that it usually entails.
You don't have to!
Decorative
Looking for low maintenance garden ideas? Look no further than decorative gravel. It won't actually make your flowers grow, it won't actually pull out the weeds for you, and it certainly won't do any digging for you, but there's a lot that it can do.
Gravel is the secret weapon that thousands of gardeners quietly employ. They are the ones whose gardens are always admired. They are also the ones who do the minimum of work to achieve it, and even less work to maintain it. Others scratch their heads and wonder just how they do it. Gravel, or to be more precise, decorative gravel is the simple answer.
You can obtain gravel in a dizzying array of colours and shapes. It comes from all kinds of stone, both hard and soft varieties and it has all kinds of uses in the garden too. It has the wonderful ability to look expensive without being expensive, and it retains an elegance that only real stone can.
The obvious use of decorative gravel in the garden is in a path or driveway. There's nothing quite like the satisfying crunch of gravel underfoot, or under car tyres. It has a kind of quality sound, perhaps because all the country mansions featured in films usually have gravel driveways. There's a kind of nostalgic 1920s Jeeves and Wooster feel to gravel in the garden.
Gravel has more mundane, but useful application in the garden. Spread around a plant or flower bed over the soil it has the effect of preventing soil erosion from heavy rain and wind. Gravel can help to restrict the evaporation of moisture from the soil, helping plants and flowers to grow better. It also helps to restrict weed growth.
Your low maintenance garden comes from all the things you don't have to do as a result of using gravel. It can mean less watering, less soil management and less weeding for a start. If that was all, then it certainly would be worth it, but there's a lot more you can do.
If you have a large lawn area, consider breaking it up with areas of gravel. Using different colours and textures you can create a most pleasing effect. You will lower your maintenance level by not having to mow so much lawn. Now, surely that is an attractive proposition!
A large lawn can have paths meandering through it. It creates a lazy effect that breaks up the straight lines. It can also be used in this way for the principles of Feng Shui if you are in to that, but just because it looks great and gets you out of too much lawn mowing should be reason enough. It's true: If you're looking for low maintenance garden ideas, look no further than decorative gravel.
Looking For Low Maintenance Garden Ideas? Look No Further Than Decorative Gravel
David A Robinson
Help and information about using decorative gravel for driveways and gardens.