Pebble hardscaping- your experience?

[vanillahip]

Anyone here have pebbles in your hardscaping? Ie: a pebble walkway, or between pavers, etc.

Is it as big of a PITA to keep looking clean and presentable as it seems?

I want to lay a couple of paver walkways but I don't want anything too permanent so I was considering surrounding the pavers with stone. Because I think it's prettier than mulch and would be "done" immediately (as opposed to ground cover- my other idea- between the stones which would take a few years to really grow in).

Any thoughts/experience with using pebbles? (not marble chips or anything, the smooth, tiny river rock type of pebble) or other suggestions on walkways that aren't terribly permanent?

[treedimensional]

My temporary path was stepping stones and mulch.
You couldn't pay me to pour pebbles in my landscape.

[mariesd]

One small corner of my yard is pebbles, and I really hate it. I'm guessing they put rocks there because grass didn't grow very well. But, little bits of grass (and weeds) still do grow there. And plenty of leaves blow into that corner. So it just looks like a mess of grass/weeds/rocks/leaves most of the time. I can't for the life of me figure out how to rake out the stuff I don't want without also raking out all the rocks. I try, but not well.

On the other hand, we have clover in another corner (unintentionally, but I'm leaving it be for now) and I think that looks 100% better than the rocks.

[emsumm]

We did exactly what you described and it looks awesome. It is easy to maintain, because there is landscape fabric laid underneath that prevents weeds. It's easy to clean off the walkway just by brushing the pavers with a broom quickly. It looks much neater than when we had stepper plants between the stones, and I'm really happy with how it turned out.
FWIW, it leads to our lawn and garden and looks very nice with the landscaping. I can take a pic tomorrow.

[vanillahip]

May 31, 2012 0:01:31 GMT -5 emsumm said:

We did exactly what you described and it looks awesome. It is easy to maintain, because there is landscape fabric laid underneath that prevents weeds. It's easy to clean off the walkway just by brushing the pavers with a broom quickly. It looks much neater than when we had stepper plants between the stones, and I'm really happy with how it turned out.
FWIW, it leads to our lawn and garden and looks very nice with the landscaping. I can take a pic tomorrow.

I'd love a pic please! What state/ region are you in? Do you have many leaves/ seeds/ whatever to deal with? Our yard is full of trees, and those dreaded helicopter seed pods!

[vanillahip]

May 30, 2012 21:03:42 GMT -5 treedimensional said:

My temporary path was stepping stones and mulch.
You couldn't pay me to pour pebbles in my landscape.

Aw damn nb! I generally just do what you say b/c I bow down to your expertise. Now I'm bummed. If I don't listen to you I'm sure you'll be saying told you do next year. Blargh!

[treedimensional]

Yeah, I'm not entirely thrilled with my mulch and stone path. It's not ideal, but it's temporary. My spouse and I couldn't agree on what to do in the space (my fault for asking him - never again) and I needed something very fast, because we were expecting a few hundred guests in the backyard for the garden tour.
I take comfort in the fact that mulch is very easy to remove / replace.

[FoxInFiji]

I agree with NB. I will never, ever again have stone in my yard! It only looks good for 2-3 years then it's a mess.

We had put down stone in our front flower beds with high quality weed blocking fabric underneath but in a matter of only two years later when we tore it out there was a surprising amount of soil on top of the fabric. Lots of worms and bugs were bring soil up with them around the edges and seams. The plants had roots growing on top of the fabric along with more soil. Tons and tons of tree debris had decomposed on top of the fabric. I tried to keep the leaves and litter out of those beds too but you can't get it all and small things that fall between the rocks. Even with just a 1/4" of soil in spots we had weeds beginning to grow there. And the only way to undo that is to dig all the rocks out by hand, brush off the soil and tree debris, and put the rocks back. Trust me you don't want to ever have to do that. It's back breaking work and very difficult to sort the debris from the rocks.

Mulch on the other hand decomposes along with the tree debris so it's not an issue. We still get as many leaves out of the beds as we can but there is no way to get them all (we have oaks which don't finish dropping their leaves in the fall so they are still dropping them in the spring). When the mulch starts decomposing just add more. A good 3" thick layer of mulch will block most weeds and make weeding what does grow very easy. We use white cedar mulch which takes lasts about 2 years before it needs another layer. Mulched areas are easy to change. In flower beds that is a must for me. If I had kept fabric in our front beds it would have been filled with a hundred holes by now with all of the plants I've added and the number of times I've moved them. We're adding a short path to a fence gate this year and it will be flagstone with mulch between.

Growing groundcover between the stones looks really nice in pictures but we have a big flagstone path that I've been trying to grow moss in and it's a weeding nightmare. We have moss yes. Lots of it but hundered of weeds as well. I will never be doing that again either. :/

For a semi-permanent solution you can use polymeric sand but it requires a good base of packed fill (sand and gravel mix). We did that for an extension of our driveway between flagstone.

It's super low maintenance and I love it! So far we do not have a single weed or ant hill coming through the polymeric sand even on the edges (both were very prominent in that location previously). You pack in polymeric sand and then wet it. It turns into basically a flexible cement. You can still dig it out and redo it if necessary. But again it requires digging a base and having an edging on each side of the path so probably too permanent for what you were looking to do.

[mouse]

What's your exit strategy? The only way to pick up all those rocks is by hand. Mulch breaks down and improves your soil. If the look is worth all the maintenance to you, go for it, but it's going to be a lot to keep up and very hard to change.

You can also do mulch now and ground cover later. If you decide on that route, some plants are better at outcompeting weeds than others. Lawn alternative blogs have some good recommendations.

[mrsreynolds4]

I have a paver (sandstone) walkway with the polymeric sand in the front, and love it. Put it in last summer, and I've only had one weed - right where it meets the driveway. I wanted the walkway to be very sturdy in front and continue it through the gate to the back. Back there I'll be surrounding the pavers with mulch. I thought about doing some type of "steppable" for the back yard path, but honestly, I struggle with so many weeds and the dry weather that I'm going for low-maintenance.

FWIW, I had several options of colors for polymeric sand too.

[Mashara]

Pebbles = bad idea

Our previous homeowners trucked in loads of it behind our house, so their dogs had space to pee. Now it just grows weeds galore.