Step-by-step recommendations on how to make a gravel bed in the country with your own hands
The dacha is a favorite vacation spot for the happy owners of a private house. And if there is also a piece of land, then in between rests you can work. After all, nothing inspires people to "ennoble a person" as fresh air. In addition to cultivated plants in the garden, each dacha necessarily has a flower garden, and the shape of the flower beds depends only on the imagination of the summer resident. This can be either a simple, unenclosed front garden along the fence, or an artsy flower bed. Recently, a new trend has become more and more popular - a gravel bed, which practically does not need weeding, since weeds are removed even at the stage of laying the flower bed.
Benefits of a gravel bed
A gravel bed is a kind of mixture of stone and plants, laid and planted in a certain order. This is a small stone garden that confidently crowds out simple flower beds due to its advantages:
- requires a minimum of maintenance due to the almost complete absence of weeds, since instead of soil - gravel backfill;
- the possibility of creating flower beds in various places of the site (in the shade, in the sun, on a slope, in remote corners);
- giving to any shape and size;
- simple technology for breaking a flower bed;
- no need to often water and fertilize planted plants.
Read about tire beds!
Step-by-step recommendations for arranging a gravel bed
It is not so difficult to make a gravel bed in the country with your own hands, following the following step-by-step recommendations.
Soil preparation
Select the site where the flower bed will be broken, and mark its boundaries - drive in the pegs and pull the rope. A flowerbed of irregular shape will look more organic. Further, in the designated area, remove the top soil layer to a depth of 20 cm. Select all the roots in the place designated for the flower bed. In order not to miss the weeds that have not yet sprouted, moisten the area and leave for a week to hatch, and also remove.
Next, dig up the site. To create a drainage layer when digging, add coarse sand or expanded clay. Then compact the ground a little with a garden roller and cover the dug-up area with the first layer of geotextile. It will serve as an obstacle for perennial weeds remaining in the depths of the earth, and also keep the gravel from subsidence.
Geotextiles cut into pieces must be laid so that a continuous canvas is obtained. The pieces are fastened together with special decaying clamps.
After, like a flower bed will be completely covered with mulching canvas, every 3 sq.m. holes must be punctured to drain excess water.
Preparing a planting site
Having decided on the places for planting plants, they are also cut out in agrofibre, guided by the size of the soft planting containers. Dig a hole in the cut out hole, put a container there, fill it with earth and plant the prepared plant.Such containers are very convenient when laying gravel beds, as they protect the root system of flowers or shrubs from damage and separate the planting site from the layer of gravel.
If the desire to plant new flowers appears after the flowerbed is covered with gravel, to plant them you need:
- Select gravel at the planting site.
- Cut the geotextile and tuck the edges down.
- Dig a hole for the seedling.
- Plant a plant, sprinkle with a small layer of earth, water.
- Replace removed gravel.
Filling the flower bed with gravel
Fill up the space remaining after planting with the first layer of gravel. Lay a second layer of geotextile on top and cover with a second decorative layer of gravel.