General gardening
- Thread starter Crimedog
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you mean for your soil garden beds? In a pond, pea gravel acts as a substrate to both support plants and their roots as well as a lot of surface area for denitrifying bacteria. In a garden soil bed, mulch acts as a moisture trap as well as will decay and provide nutrients to the plants. It also deters weeds, for a while. So, not the same function.
I used to have small rocks as my garden top dressing and though you'd think it would deter weeds, in time, I found it didn't and then, removing the weeds was a lot harder than using mulch (which is what I have now, or just plain soil).
Was there a purpose to why you want to use pea gravel instead of mulch or vice versa?
I used to have small rocks as my garden top dressing and though you'd think it would deter weeds, in time, I found it didn't and then, removing the weeds was a lot harder than using mulch (which is what I have now, or just plain soil).
Was there a purpose to why you want to use pea gravel instead of mulch or vice versa?
I don't recommend any kind of gravel in the garden - as @brokensword said weeds will still grow and it's much harder to plant and weed in gravel. My neighbor - bless his heart - filled a small portion of his side yard with gravel. He was trying to eliminate one area that was tough for him to mow with his riding mower. Bags and bags and bags of gravel. He and is wife worked on it all last spring. He put landscape fabric down first, thinking that would stop the weeds. Nope. The landscape fabric collects dirt on TOP of it and the weeds just find their way in, within a matter of a few weeks. So now he routinely douses it with RoundUp... not a fan!
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While gravel (pea or otherwise) can be used as a top dressing/mulch of sorts in a regular garden bed, it won't (as brokensword mentioned) work quite the same way as a weed suppressor as regular shredded wood mulch. Weed seeds will work their way down in between the bits of gravel & take up residence.
The one benefit of using gravel over wooden mulch is that it doesn't break down, so rarely needs to be replaced. The downside of this is that it doesn't break down, so doesn't do anything to enhance the soil. Some plants which are very sensitive to soil moisture do better with a gravel mulch, because it doesn't hold water right up close to the plants, so if you're growing succulents or planning a rock garden of water-wise plants, it can be a better option.
The one benefit of using gravel over wooden mulch is that it doesn't break down, so rarely needs to be replaced. The downside of this is that it doesn't break down, so doesn't do anything to enhance the soil. Some plants which are very sensitive to soil moisture do better with a gravel mulch, because it doesn't hold water right up close to the plants, so if you're growing succulents or planning a rock garden of water-wise plants, it can be a better option.
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OK - was planning on a walkway alongside a flower bed to the Pond. Pea gravel over weed barrier over sand to mimic the Bog, thought maybe pea gravel for mulch in flower bed to carry the idea through. Scrap the gravel for mulch idea.
Another thing I see a lot here in the midwest is gravel in landscape beds - terrible for your shrubs and bushes. It keeps the soil too hot and does nothing for weed suppression.