Driveway upkeep – common problems to look out for

Everybody wants to keep their driveway looking good – in many cases it gives visitors their first impression of your home, and is something that most householders take a lot of pride in.

If you want to keep your drive looking great for years to come, you need to put in the hours with maintaining it. Properly tending to it from the start will add to its longevity, reduce any potential repair costs and increase the value of your home.

The problems that are likely to crop up with a driveway, of course, depend on the material used to surface it.

One of the most commonly used materials is gravel, and the issues you might have include:

• Potholes – It’s difficult to avoid the pothole effect in a gravel driveway, no matter how tightly packed the stones are. The weather and continuous traffic will take a toll. It can be tempting just to take stone from another area of the driveway and fill any holes with it, but in fact what this will do is cause the same problem to eventually occur in another part of the drive, no matter how carefully you take stones from different areas! We suggest keeping some gravel back when you have the driveway laid so that you have a supply to remedy any uneven areas that crop up over time.
• Poor drainage – A driveway laid by a professional landscaper such as John Lessels Landscaping shouldn’t have any issues with drainage as this would have been organised at the start of the project. However, if you take on an already laid driveway, or lay your own, it’s something you could experience problems with at a later date. The first thing you might notice is erosion, leading to the deep ruts and potholes, and a loss of gravel. If the problems were caused by bad construction, you’ll probably need to call in an expert to install some sort of drainage system.
• Loose stone – If the gravel doesn’t seem to stay in the driveway, not only is it annoying but it can also damage lawnmowers if you don’t spot it. We’d suggest edging an errant driveway to prevent the stones escaping all over the garden, which will look good as well as keeping the gravel where it should be.

For advice on driveway projects, contact the friendly team at John Lessels Landscaping and we’ll help you find the solution.

Driveways and the law

Just like everything else, when it comes to driveways there are rules and regulations you need to be aware of – mainly to do with planning.

Since 2008, if you want to cover your front garden with a hard surface, driveway or paving, and the area that needs covering is more than five square metres, you’ll need to get planning permission if you’re putting down traditional, impermeable materials which don’t control rainwater running off onto the roads.

You don’t need  planning permission  for less than five square metres, nor do you need it if the surface you’re putting down will permeable or porous, or  if  you use a traditional surface which directs rainwater to a lawn or border to drain naturally (or there is another drainage solution, like a soakaway added)

If you want to avoid planning permission, you could look at alternative options like;

·         Permeable paving
·         Porous asphalt
·         Sustainable drainage systems / rainwater harvesting systems
·         Combinations of gravel with a green, vegetated area
·         Traditional hard surfaces that incorporate run-off to your garden or lawn or a rain garden or soakaway

It’s fine to lay hard surfacing which lets water to soak into it along with concrete permeable paving or porous asphalt, but you will need to make sure they are laid on top of a sub-base which lets water pass through and be stored.

Other ideas include letting water run-off into your lawn or flower beds, or working it so that the run off is directed towards an area of your garden where it will collect, and either soak into the ground or flow to the drains.

Soakaways are another option; these pipe water into a gravel-filled trench or container and from there it soaks back into the ground. These are only suitable for properties which have larger front gardens, as they need more space than other options and legally they need to be a certain distance from your house or any other buildings.

For advice about driveways, what’s suitable for your property and how to make sure that your driveway conforms to all the relevant legislation, talk to an expert garden landscaper like John Lessels Landscaping.

Top Five Weeding Tips

Image: Green Seedling In Hand by domdeen via FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Weeding – it’s never going to be anyone’s favourite job, is it? Some people claim to find it therapeutic, blitzing all those pesky weeds, but for most of us it’s a necessary evil if we want our garden to look presentable. The good news is that in just ten minutes a day you can get on top of your weed situation and make sure that your driveways, paths and gardens look pristine.

 1. Get mulching!

Mulching really makes a difference to the overall weed situation, simply because bare soil is like an open invitation for all the weeds in the garden to congregate and take root.  If you pre-empt the invasion by covering any bare soil with mulch, it stops them from seeding and growing. You can use pre-made shredded leaf and straw mulch, or make use of your own garden waste, but organic mulch is better than non-organic, especially for vegetable patches, herb gardens and fruit.

Mulching also has the benefit of enriching the soil with the nitrogen it needs for healthy growth.

2. Give it some air

Give the soil in your garden a good raking over, especially around the bases of plants, to aerate it. It’s recommended that you do this at least once a week, and to a depth of 3-5 inches. Collect any loose weeds up as you go. Don’t over-rake your soil though, because this can have the opposite effect, embedding weeds into the soil as you go

3. Just 10 minutes a day!

You really don’t have to spend hours and hours in the garden, it’s just a matter of keeping on top of the little jobs so that they don’t turn into one big one. If you make a deal with yourself to get outside and do a bit of weeding every day, just for ten minutes, you’ll be able to stop roots of weeds from bedding in and growing too much. Even if you’re just outside enjoying a spot of spring sunshine, you can weed here and there and get rid of them as they appear.

4. Don’t forget your pathways

 The annoying weeds that crop up in between the paving on your pathways and driveways won’t stay there – they’ll soon start appearing in your lawn and borders if you don’t take care of them, too.

5. Cover old crops 

Bare soil from old vegetable patch crops is another open invitation to weeds. They love an empty space! Prevent them by planting ‘cover crops’ to fill in the space while you’re waiting for your next crop of vegetables or fruits to start growing.

For more advice on gardens, contact a garden landscaping expert like John Lessels Landscaping.

Designing your perfect driveway

You want to make a good impression with your driveway – after all it’s the first thing people will see when they come to visit you, and you want it to look great. It’s also got to be durable and long-lasting, as there’s going to be a lot of traffic coming and going on it over the years.

Your first task when you’re planning a driveway is to take a look around you at the landscape you want to fit the driveway into  and imagine what will look really good in it. For ideas, you can look at garden magazines and websites, or you could speak to a garden landscaping expert like John Lessels Landscaping who can advise you on what would go well and suit your needs.

A driveway looks best if it takes into account the style of your home, too, and there is a huge variety of different layout options for residential driveways available for you to choose from, taking into account the type of use, the location, accessibility and more.

Once you have a rough idea of the design you’re looking for, you can start choosing your materials. If you have a set budget, there will be some options that aren’t practical, but it’s still possible to create a feature driveway with a ‘sensible’ amount of money – you don’t have to go mad. If you have your heart set on a very long driveway, remember, even though it’s obvious, it’s going to cost a lot more because of the extra materials needed. That’s why many large driveways are paved with gravel, because it’s often the most affordable option.

It’s really important to compare the price you pay for the installation and design to the cost of maintenance and durability of the materials you choose. Sometimes you might think you’re saving money by going for a cheaper paving material, but you find that it needs replacing a lot faster than the higher quality materials, so it’s a false economy. The material you choose needs to be strong enough to support the traffic you expect over it, resist drips, chemicals and tyre marks and look good for as long as possible. Again, if you're not sure, speak to an expert in garden landscaping.

If you really love the idea of a decorative driveway, but can't afford to completely pave it, you could also try adding accents like decorative borders and aprons instead. You get the decorative effect but pave the bulk of the area with cheaper gravel, which gives the aesthetic effect and is just as hard-wearing.