Choosing the Right Paving Materials

Paving is so much more than just placing tiles on the ground. It is what makes your garden wonderful, decides on its character and makes it different than everything else. It can be done as a DIY project, but you can also hire a professional to do it for you more thoroughly. However, regardless of the fact whether you want to do this on your own or if you want to hire somebody, you will need to make sure that you have chosen the right paving material.

There are many types of that material and all of them have their good and bad sides. So, it is necessary that you choose wisely and make a great choice. This will decide on the visual identity of your garden and it is visible and present throughout the entire year, not like the plants and grass that you grow there. Here are some main types of material for paving your garden.
Stone

There are many pros for this type of paving material for your garden. First of all, almost nothing fits into the natural environment so easily like stone does. It is only logical when you think about it, because by placing stone as your pavement, you are not introducing some foreign or artificial material into your garden, but simply rearranging what the nature has already placed there. Stone is cut into the shapes and tiles and placed as a pavement. You can find stone virtually anywhere and the color range is huge. However, the bad sides are that the colors cannot be consistent, if you are into that sort of thing and sometimes, blotching can happen. On the other hand, this only adds to the charm that stone has and accents its natural look.
Poured concrete
Be prepared to spend a lot of time on maintenance if you are opting for poured concrete. This requires a little bit of construction work. As the name suggests, poured concrete requires that you make precise measurement for your pavement and then pour the concrete while it is in the liquid state in that pavement mold. The good side is that it is fairly cheap and it takes any form that you may want or need. However, it cracks very easily, which may be quite a nuisance. Another quite annoying feature is that it needs to be maintained regularly in order to avoid stains that easily happen with this type of pavement. If you want something a little bit fancier in this range, you should opt for stamped and colored concrete. The downsides are more or less the same like the poured concrete although the stains are not that obvious and visible.
Sandstone
Of course, this is the type of stone as well but it deserves a section of its own, just as gravel does. The reason is the fact that this type of stone is easy to find, it is of a very good quality when it comes to pavement and it is not expensive as you might imagine. This type of stone is far easier to cut than other types of stone, because it is soft. Since it is not rare, it can be ordered in large quantities. The colors may vary, just like with any other type of stone, because they are cut from the big rocks. However, the variations in the color are more of the interesting feature of a stone then they are its downside. Therefore, this type of stone makes a very interesting choice for your pavement.
Gravel
If you want an inexpensive and easily obtained pavers, then gravel is your choice. Just like everything else with an attractive name tag, gravel has some downsides. First of all it is a short term solution because gravel doesn’t really stop all those weeds from growing. Therefore, if you let it unmonitored, you will not be able to differentiate your gravel paved path from the rest of your garden. Some people don’t like the feeling of instability that some sorts of gravel have beneath their feet. This is particularly true for the round shaped gravel because the pieces don’t really blend together that easily. The angle shaped type sinks in much better and it gets better and more stable by constant usage.
There are many other types of stones and concretes to use for your pavement, but these are the most prominent and the must-know things when it comes to pavement. You could look at granite, limestone or slate when it comes to stone pavements, or check out the concrete blocks and tiles when it comes to concrete type of pavement. Your choice should be based on the esthetic value of the material as well as its requirements for maintenance, so think twice and choose wisely.