Stone Gardens vs Grass Gardens

[PeteC]

The photos didn't appear Paderborn. See below thread for more guidance. Pete

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=16714

[Paderborn]

Sorry everyone the photos failed yet again.
Thanks pete for the instructions, I have followed them to the letter, but when I get to the progress bar, it comes up as file invalid.
So I am now out of ideas and will seek an answer to my problem in the digital realm
Thanks Paderborn

[STEVE G]

...but when I get to the progress bar, it comes up as file invalid.

I think that's normally because they're too large, I use this: http://www.shrinkpictures.com/ to knock them down to less than a 1000 pixels a side which then should work.

[johnnyk]

@Magnum,
nice job, it looks great.

[magnum]

Cheers mate pretty pleased with it myself.

[Rob W]

Artificial grass anyone?
I put a small piece down in a very troublesome shady spot
It has been down now about 20 months, it has not faded, it is permiable. I can take it up when the workmen are going to trample all over it, and has fooled lots of people.
It is quite convincing
The rest of the garden is real lawn, (which is time consuming) and pebbles. I am not sure if I can upload the photos but I will give it a go...if they dont upload, some please pm me, and tell me what I am doing wrong thanks paderborn

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We are thinking of doing this at our place in the UK to replace the gravel around the raised veg beds. To be honest the gravel takes to much maintenace we thought it would be easy to look after but we still have weeds growing in the gravel they are easy to pull out but when there is a lot of them ! we also have the weed fabric under the stones but this has not stopped the moles.
So we are moving away from stones to astro turf lets see how that turns out.

Rob

[Terry]

In my past life in the UK I had a 'stone' border, into which seasonal pot plants were placed.

The 'stones' or large pebbles were laid as follows:

On to the cleared bare earth a layer of sharp sand about 5cm thick and levelled.
On top of that some heavy polythene sheeting which then got a good piercing with the garden fork.
'Stones' or pebbles laid on top - minimum 15cm thick

Never got any weeds and drainage was superb

BUT - never tried this in Thailand, but do not see why it should not work.

[johnnyk]

My grass has upped and died too and I have no desire to replace it and see the same thing happen again. Can anyone offer costs and sources for making a stone garden? I like what I've seen on this thread so any help would be much appreciated.

[Vital Spark]

I hope I don’t come across as some kind of freak, but I do think that having contact with ‘mother earth’ is hugely important. I believe that we need to ground ourselves occasionally (just like electricity), as it’s good for the soul. That’s why you feel so good walking barefoot on the beach. Having a completely stoned (not in the ‘Hey, man...’ kind of way) garden means you have a barrier between your feet and earth, and ornamental plants provide very little habitat for the birds and the bees (and harmless insects).

Each to their own. But if you do have a bit of grass, just stand on it barefooted - it feels really soothing.

Ornamental, stone gardens do look very tidy and are relatively easy to manage, but, in my opinion they lack soul.

(Edited because of typos...)

[Siani]

For me grass everytime. I don't mind stone borders or drives that allow drainage and plants to live. The current thinking is that porous materials only should now be used for driveways/hard standing/front gardens, definately yes
Some people concrete the whole of their front gardens, mainly to park cars, avoid gardening etc. Aside from being ugly it prevents drainage of water. No wonder we are getting flooded everywhere. The water does not have a chance to go naturally anywhere, but gush into other land and property.
Also, so much nicer for picnics, children playing etc. When anyone falls over on concrete, it can be horrible...on grass ...fun sometimes

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[wpcoe]

I'm curious. In the US, when you want a stone/pebbled front yard, it is customary to first lay down a sheet of thick vinyl to minimize any plants poking through the stones/pebbles. If the soil here is so antagonistic to plants, would you not need the vinyl sheet underlay?

[STEVE G]

We discussed it on this thread earlier but I've since needed to make a parking area at the front of my house and I just put down five truck loads of crushed rock inside a block border with nothing underneath and so far it's resisted anything coming through. Seeing as the stuff is only 3,500 bt a truck, I'll just add more and make it thicker if anything does start to get past it but it seems to compact down pretty densly. I can imagine that pebbles might be different as there are going to be more voids for weeds to get through.

[johnnyk]

I hope I don’t come across as some kind of freak, but I do think that having contact with ‘mother earth’ is hugely important. I believe that we need to ground ourselves occasionally (just like electricity), as it’s good for the soul. That’s why you feel so good walking barefoot on the beach. Having a completely stoned (not in the ‘Hey, man...’ kind of way) garden means you have a barrier between your feet and earth, and ornamental plants provide very little habitat for the birds and the bees (and harmless insects).

Each to their own. But if you do have a bit of grass, just stand on it barefooted - it feels really soothing.

Ornamental, stone gardens do look very tidy and are relatively easy to manage, but, in my opinion they lack soul.

(Edited because of typos...)

Yes, stones are manufactured in a factory and do not occur in nature so people are not 'grounded' on them.

[Vital Spark]

Point taken JK. But if they're laid on top of thick polythene, then if kind of breaks the 'connection'.

'Scuse me, gotta go, a tree needs hugging...

VS

[STEVE G]

The problem I have is that I have a rai of garden and if I cover the whole lot with grass, I'm going to need a ridiculous amount of water every day to keep it alive, which might make it look green but isn't at all from an environmental point of view. I'm putting in a lot of trees and stone on the ground instead.