Colored decorative crushed stone and other stones for decoration

Owners of country mansions know very well how difficult it is to keep the local area in order, especially if it has a less than ideal landscape. However, today a new trend has come to their aid - colored gravel.

The material is well known to Europeans. They use it as a lawn decoration, decoration of monuments, decoration of park areas. The time has come for our gardeners to get to know the decorative gravel closer.

What is colored stone chips

Crushed stone is a derivative of crushing blocks of rock. This is an inorganic bulk material of various grain sizes with a fraction of 5 mm. Crushed future decorative chips are sieved and sorted by size. In other words, this is the waste of quarries where development is underway:

• granite;
• limestones;
• marble.

Decoration stones are also obtained by processing metal ores. Depending on the waste of what material the crushed stone is, its qualitative characteristics also appear. It can vary in strength, shape, color.

Crushed stone, formed naturally, during the natural decay of mountain structures, having the shape of rounded grains and a flat surface, is called gravel. If at the same time the pebbles stayed on the seashore for a long time and acquired rounded outlines, they are called pebbles.

The natural color of the material is due to the origin. Crushed stone is found:

• White;
• all shades of gray;
• red-brown;
• pinkish beige.

The last two options are derivatives of granite and marble.

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Where does colored gravel come from?

Producing stones for career decoration began not so long ago. To give the stone chips the desired color, modern dyes are used, which are resistant to weathering. Most often, these are polymer paints, presented in a wide range of colors. This choice is not accidental. It is due to the characteristics of the paintwork material, which is non-toxic, not able to come into contact with the ground, does not harm plants.

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Popular colors

The greatest demand is for decorative crushed stone, painted in blue, green, yellow, white, red tones and black. It is simply indispensable in landscape design. Its use allows you to embody the most original plans for decor, both for entire territories and individual objects.

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Why choose decorative gravel?

“The long service life also speaks in favor of the use of colored chips: decorative gravel can lie in a flower bed for up to 7 years”

In addition to high aesthetic qualities and a wide tint palette, colored gravel has many other advantages that have not gone unnoticed by designers. A high priority was given to the material for its environmental friendliness and safety. This allows you to use decorative gravel not only in gardens, but also in the improvement of playgrounds for children's games. Its backfill is easy to remove if necessary, which is important in the construction of temporary architectural forms.

Sprinkling stones to decorate flower beds and other plantings does not allow the soil to dry out and prevents the growth of weeds.

With high decorativeness, the material has an affordable cost. A long service life also speaks in favor of the use of colored chips: decorative gravel can lie in a flower bed for up to 7 years. It is resistant to temperature, moisture, UV. Does not lose color intensity in the open sun and in heavy rain.

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Where is colored decorative gravel used?

Gravel backfills can be seen in the decoration of areas adjacent to administrative buildings, in parks, squares, and playgrounds. With its help, inscriptions are created and logos are laid out, which is additional advertising for companies and firms.

The fields of golf clubs and tennis courts are decorated with stone chips. At home, it is found in winter gardens, flower pots. Aquariums are decorated with colored gravel. They are lined with terrariums, but the material is most in demand in the design of suburban areas. There, fences and hedges are sprinkled with decorative crumbs, and a blind area is formed near the walls of houses.

Gravel coating is an excellent option for arranging garden paths and alleys. It serves as an unusually beautiful backdrop for laying out flower beds and arranging rock gardens.

Decorative gravel is easy to use. Not only professionals, but also ordinary people can work with it. Stone crumb does not need specific care and at the same time is able to ensure the accuracy and originality of the territory for a long time, no matter what time of year it is outside.

An important aspect is the mobility of the coating. Colored decorative gravel can be simply removed from the site and transferred to another. The crumb is designed for repeated use. After the loss of decorativeness, it can become a component of drainage pillows or be used for other household purposes.

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Some ideas for using stones for garden decor

Problematic corners of the garden are a real headache for owners. Giving them a neat look is not so easy. For example, sandy soils in the open sun are not the best place to plant plants. They just don't survive there. Even the grass quickly turns into deadwood. The situation is no better in dense shade or in wetlands. It will be almost impossible to break a flower garden there. But stones for decor, in this regard, are comfortable everywhere. In addition, a rocky landscape is always relevant in a garden of any style.

An excellent option would be to install large boulders there surrounded by gravel bedding. Colored gravel is indispensable for the arrangement of artificial reservoirs. It falls asleep at the bottom of country ponds and streams. Huge stones protruding above the water against the backdrop of a blue gravel bed make the compositions incredibly attractive.

A mandatory element is decorative gravel for alpine slides. They are sprinkled with a foot, fill the voids and free spaces formed after landing. The composition looks natural and is associated with a real natural mountainside.

The use of stone chips of different sizes gives additional relief to the terrain. Thus, a specific zone or place on the site is allocated.

Gravel in a Japanese garden

This is a separate issue. In creating a Japanese garden, the role of such an element as colored gravel is difficult to overestimate. The garden of voids, as such compositions are also called, is a derivative of exclusively combinations of stones for decor, differing in texture, size, and shape. Large elements abstractly pile up in the form of hills and islands. Small decorative crumbs are sprinkled with arched rings or waves. Her task is to symbolize water. The stone garden needs some maintenance. It consists in periodically drawing grooves in gravel bedding. This is done with a special rake.

The illusion of running water should not be broken. Circular bedding around a single boulder will create the effect of expanding circles. This is a great way to capture the beauty of the moment a stone is thrown into the water.

dry stream

“You need to start creating an object from cameos for decor by choosing a place for its location”

This element belongs to the brightest solutions for organizing the landscape, and it is not at all difficult to equip it, in the presence of colored gravel, with your own hands. It doesn't take a lot of time or a lot of effort. Creating a dry stream is the best way to increase the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe site, naturally at the visual level, to hide relief defects.

Its surface will not become a refuge for mosquitoes, which so love to breed on standing water. Being arranged in accordance with all the rules, a composite element made of colored stone chips will make an amazing impression. It seems that all this splendor is the creation of Mother Nature herself. It is not at all necessary to give the relief composition the shape of a stream. It can be quite interpreted as a lake or the same pond.

You need to start creating an object from cameos for decoration by choosing a place for its location. Then its shapes and proportions are thought out. Interesting ideas about this can be searched on the Internet. In a short but wide space, a winding stream running from an embankment of colored decorative gravel will be more relevant, while in a narrow and long area it is much more appropriate to form a lake. When choosing a stream, it becomes possible in the water in the landscape of the site of such an element as a bridge.

When purchasing colored gravel, one must take into account the fact that in nature a stream has a source and a mouth, therefore, stone chips of an excellent shade should be selected to designate these zones. The place of imitation of the confluence of a dry stream into another body of water can be decorated with a fence, as an option - live. It is easy to organize it by planting large-leaved plantings: bergenia, hosts, cannes.

It is rational to locate the source at least on a small construction. A small round recess is laid out with pebbles so that it gives the impression of the presence of a small well, symbolizing the birth of a spring. The source flowing from the rock looks great. Such an imitation is also created by laying stones for decorating a large fraction.

Fine decorative gravel and pebbles, which can be chosen in a variety of colors, will help to ideally imitate the water surface. To work, you need a scattering of gray-blue, aquamarine, deep blue, gray stone chips. Colored components are poured in accordance with the idea. For example, to create the effect of depth in the center of the channel, you can fill in crushed stone painted in a dark blue tone, gradually “losing” color as it approaches the banks.

Decoration with decorative crumb flower beds

There are two ways to decorate a flower garden with colored gravel. In a more complex version, the place under the flower bed is given a given shape, a fence is equipped with a margin for height. After that, a layer of mulching fabric is laid out along the future flower bed. The underlay will protect the area from overgrowing with weeds. You can use as a solid cut of the underlying tissue, and collect the coating from its pieces. In the latter case, the segments are overlapped. It is necessary to fix the coating with needle clamps of a decomposing type. It is permissible to use metal fasteners along the perimeter of the fence. Holes are made in the coverings for planting. They may well be placed in containers. After that, you can start backfilling the first layer of colored decorative gravel. He will be responsible for the drainage of water. By and large, stones for decoration are not needed here. It is quite possible to get by with ordinary stone chips. A tissue layer is again placed on the drainage. The gravel used must be washed before use. To mask the second layer of the substrate, you will need to use decorative gravel of different shades and fractions. Backfilling it is carried out according to a certain scheme or abstractly, it all depends on the initial project. When creating a gravel composition, it is very good to show imagination, then the flower bed will turn out to be extraordinary, and the composition as a whole will be unique.

According to a simplified scheme, the decor of a flower bed with crushed stone painted in different colors is performed as follows: weeds are pulled out in a ready-made flower garden and stone chips of different shades are scattered over the cleared space. This must be done so that there are no ground gaps, so the backfill is made with a layer of at least 2 cm.

This method is really easy, but has disadvantages. Decorative gravel can mix with the soil, and the flower garden will no longer look aesthetically pleasing. The cover will need to be restored. At the end of the season, colored gravel will have to be collected, washed, and dried. After that, it can be used in subsequent seasons.

From colored stone chips, delightful garden paths are obtained. With their help, you can solve the most complex landscape tasks. For example, laying straight alleys along narrow shaded aisles is directly contraindicated. The clarity of the lines will make the landscape dull and associate it with a dark corridor. You can defuse the situation by breaking a winding path, between the curbs of which decorative gravel will be covered. Going into the thickets, she will create an alluring-mysterious atmosphere.

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How to work with decorative chips

Laying colored gravel can hardly be called a technology, although there are still certain points that you should know about when working with it.

You should start by preparing the backfill site. The earth is removed from the chosen site, removing its approximately 10 cm layer. Borders are immediately dug in along the perimeter of the site. They can be of any quality: even plastic, even concrete. The prepared soil is covered with a layer of sand, on top of which an insulating material will lie, letting water into the soil, but not allowing colored gravel and sand to mix. Such an insulator can be a banal polyethylene film with holes made.

The thickness of the backfill layer of decorative gravel depends on the functional purpose of the place. If this is a flower garden, the surface of which will not be constantly affected, then its two-centimeter layer is enough here. On alleys, its size increases to five centimeters. The colored decorative gravel laid in this way makes it possible to form stable compositions, the maintenance of which is practically not required. Unless sometimes it will be necessary to trim the contours and remove the applied debris.

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Conclusion

Colored gravel is a great opportunity to express your vision of the surrounding landscape, as well as a great way to bring perfect order to the site without spending a lot of money or a lot of energy - especially if you make your own decorative gravel.

Photo gallery - colored gravel

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