Sunday, October 16, 2011

DIY: Landscaping with stones/aggregate

Managed to finish off setting in the pavers along the side of the house yesterday, and flattened out the front "garden" in preparation for the next stage.

Went down to Daisy's Garden Supplies today - I had shortlisted a few landscape/garden supply places, but quite a few of them don't open at all on Sunday so they got struck off the list immediately! Anyway, they had a good variety of mulches, rocks, stones, sleepers etc, and I was very surprised to hear they'd deliver an order within the hour, even on a Sunday afternoon! So anyway, we chose to get 5 cubic metres of 20mm screenings - it's a granite aggregate, looks great with lots of white/black flecks in it, plus half a dozen sleepers and some other bits & pieces.

So, 45 minutes later we had this dumped in front of the house:


Here's the laundry side of the house with some pavers set into mortar;


and after about 90 minutes, we'd done this much movement of stones. Used layers of newspaper and weedmat under the stones to control weed growth (from what I've read, apparently layered newspaper does a fine job to block weeds growing - we'll see! At least we have plenty of newspaper to recycle this way!).

We'll probably add a few more wheelbarrow loads of stones once the basic coverage is done to make sure it's more level. Already a big improvement over the uneven mud trail that's been there for a year; and once this side is done I can hang up a clothesline outside the laundry.

Hoping to get all the stone laid out by next weekend, then mulch/planting the front garden, and maybe even make a start planning a deck for Melbourne Cup weekend!

(does anyone know if you need a permit for a small deck, around 20sqm?)

T&T

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