Introduction
Hardscaping designs often incorporate large stones. There’s nothing wrong with that. However, it isn’t cheap. One way to get the same level of durability and elegance is to use pebbles. You can make entire hardscaping designs with pebbles or offset the cost of large stones by making a fraction of the hardscaping with pebbles. If you need to get your property hardscape, you can hire professionals for the job by searching for “paving companies near me”. Let’s check out how you can increase curb appeal with pebbles:
The Details
- Pebble mulch – Mulching is very important for your garden. It provides weed protection, helps to mitigate soil erosion to some extent, and has many other benefits. However, replacing that mulch after a few months can be tiresome for many people. Some lack the time while others find the process of collecting mulch material, grinding it down, and laying it over very labor-intensive.
Instead, you can use pebbles. Pebbles are virtually everlasting. It would take hundreds of years for the forces of nature to shave away and reduce the pebble to dust. Moreover, pebbles are a greater deterrent to weeds and invasive species since it doesn’t allow any light to reach the ground. In the long run, it’s also cheaper than mulch. However, you won’t get the nutritional benefits of mulch. Pebble doesn’t decompose and becomes a nutrient for your plants. That’s why they are great for mulching spaces where you don’t plan to grow anything.
- Replace grass with rocks – If you thought mulching was a labor-intensive activity, maintaining lawn grass is the final boss of such activities. Lawn grass needs a lot of care every season for protection against weeds and pests and is a water hog. Lawn grass consumes more water than the next two most irrigated commercial crops in the United States. That’s a lot of money that flows down the soil.
Instead, you can free yourself from the green patch by replacing it with pebbles. If sourced right, pebbles can look far more attractive than lawn grass and don’t cost you anything in maintenance. You can get multi-colored pebbles or a single color to amp up the aesthetics. For instance, if you have a walkway made of wide rectangular black stone slabs you can have them surrounded by white pebbles. It creates a fantastic contrast and adds a lot of drama to the look.
- Create layers with pebbles – You have a great paved walkway and a beautiful well-maintained flower garden a few feet across. Add pebbles to the equation and you have a striking look that’s more than enough to impress anyone that takes a walk through your yard. Add more character and depth to the walkway by adding layers of pebbles between the flower beds and the walkway.
You can choose a few varieties of textures and colors and use them to create cohesive layers between the walkway and flower beds. If you want to go overboard you can match the colors of the pebbles with your walkway and flowers. This takes a lot of effort and research, but the end result is stunning.
- Pebble path – Pebbles don’t just need to complement other structures. They can also add a lot of aesthetic value by themselves. One of the ways to achieve that is with a pebble path. You can use pebbles and small stones to create a walkway in your yard. You can use white pebbles to create a small path from the sidewalk to your front door or use them to create walkways around your flower beds.
This doesn’t just help with curb appeal but also helps reduce soil compaction. Moreover, this kind of landscape improvement is very DIY-friendly. All you need to do is level the ground, add a gravel base, add stones or pebbles on it and create a boundary with bricks or large stones to prevent the pebbles from moving sideways due to foot traffic.
- Drainage – Drainage usually doesn’t look very appealing. That’s why most people cover it up with concrete slabs or metal sheets or some other material and hide it away from sight. However, you can even make those unappealing drains look gorgeous with pebbles. You can cover grates on a spillover or simply strip drains with pebbles to add contrast and texture.
Moreover, this improvement in curb appeal doesn’t prioritize looks over functionality. Your drainage and water flow aren’t affected in any way. Instead, it’s improved. If there’s a storm and flowing water brings in sand and mud, the pebbles prevent most of it from clogging up the drain.
- Zen rock garden – A Zen rock garden has a few key components. This Asian landscaping design contains moss islands, a couple of boulders, a fountain, or some other water feature, and raked pebbles. You can add more visual interest and dimension to your Zen rock garden by using more dark-colored pebbles. You can also add more contrast with shapes. The irregular and rounded pebbles look fantastic against solid clean lines of bright earth-toned stone slabs.
- Tree base – If you have a dominant tree in your garden that acts as the focal point you can draw even more attention to it with a pebble base. Using the pebbles evens the ground around the tree. To add more character to the visual appeal you can enclose the pebble base in a rectangular or round border with large rocks or bricks.
- Enclose yard art – Nothing can add more curb appeal than literal art. Pebbles can be used to add a protective boundary for that art. You can create a mesmerizing landscape by making shapes or patterns in a section of the yard and enclosing it with pebbles. It can be stones laid in a certain way to make a checkerboard or a mini-maze made from small ground-level shrubs.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are numerous ways of incorporating pebbles into your hardscaping design to increase the curb appeal without breaking the bank. If you want the same for your property you can search for “paving companies near me” and hire reputed professionals fit for the job.
