Do gravel/garden yards require more work than regular grass lawns?

[darkstar]

Overall, is maintaining something like this more or less time consuming in terms of hours per year? On surface, it seems like it might require less time, but what do I know?

[Sanity Claws]

1. If done right, it should require less time to maintain

There should be some kind of plastic sheeting under the gravel to prevent weeds from coming up.
Some people do the same with the garden area and then put top soil over it. Of course, if you plant something that needs deep roots, you really can't do that.

[Blue Diadem]

3. yep, we had landscape fabric under ours. n/t

[XemaSab]

7. Cut a hole through the landscape fabric

for deep-rooting plants. If you only have a few inches of soil, mulch, or what have you on top of the fabric, at least in California it will be too dry for plants to grow on top of the fabric.

[Blue Diadem]

10. Yes, cutting a hole for the plants is important, at least around here.

Where I'm at, we couldn't possibly have soil on top of the fabric. It would defeat the purpose of the fabric. It's one of the reasons I like the rock so well. Mulch composts naturally(and in one season in one of my large plant beds) and will sprout weeds on top of landscape fabric in the degraded mulch. That flower bed is a nightmare with weeds and mini maple trees sprouting.

[darkstar]

12. Thanks for the input!

:toast:

[darkstar]

11. Thanks!!

Appreciate the tips.

:hi:

[Blue Diadem]

2. We had river rock at our place in Mi. I liked it.

I very seldom had to pull weeds and it was pretty easy to get the leaves and tree seeds out of in the spring and fall.

If we ever get the money I'd like to do the same thing here.

[Flaxbee]

4. yes, gravel does require less work. You might want to investigate xeriscaping:

(from Wikipedia)

Xeriscaping refers to landscaping in ways that do not require supplemental irrigation. It is promoted in areas that do not have easily accessible supplies of fresh water, and is catching on in other areas as climate patterns shift.

The word xeriscaping was coined by combining xeros (Greek for "dry") with landscape.

Plants whose natural requirements are appropriate to the local climate are emphasized, and care is taken to avoid losing water to evaporation and run-off. XeriscapeTM and the xeriscape logo are registered trademarks of Denver Water, the water department of Denver, Colorado.<1> They were created by the Front Range Xeriscape Task Force of Denver Department in 1978.<1>

The specific plants used in xeriscaping depend upon the climate. Some common plants used in Western xeriscaping are agave, cactus, lavender, juniper, sedum and thyme.

In some areas, terms such as water-conserving landscapes, drought-tolerant landscaping, zeroscaping, and smart scaping are used instead.


**
Regular grass is rather absurd unless you live in an area with adequate natural waterfall.

[harmonicon]

5. why that isn't the law out west is beyond me

When my brother lived in Denver they had the even/odd days for lawn watering, which I thought was silly. No one needs to water their lawn, or have a lawn at all. When I lived in California it was even worse. That's just straight up desert, but people were lawn crazy. It boggles my mind.

[Gormy Cuss]

6. The first change we made to our yard in a temperate CA area was to pull out the useless front lawn.

Everything planted in front of the house meets two requirements: xeric and deer-resistant. We're not even close to a desert climate but it doesn't rain for six months straight and big lawns make no sense whatsoever.


on edit for the OP: gravel requires very little ongoing attention. Weeds do germinate above the black cloth but they're easy to pull out. After 5 years or so the black weed cloth may need to be replaced.

[XemaSab]

8. Just to throw out a plug here:

www.laspilitas.com has California native plants, which are drought tolerant and don't take much water at all. I weed them intensively twice a year, and aside from that, they've been pretty trouble-free so far!

[darkstar]

13. Thanks for the input here, XS.

I appreciate the responses.

:hi:

[Duer 157099]

9. I'd say it's like comparing apples and oranges, but

it's really more like comparing rocks and grass :shrug:

[XemaSab]

14. .

:groan: