Blog:

When and why should I

use pavers in

landscaping?

Pavers are one of your best choices for hardscaping…the permanent elements of your landscape! Read this blog then check out our Pavers Page. They create a beautiful and classy look that is often reminiscent of and provide an old-world European feel. Looking beautiful and classy, they come in many sizes, colors, and shapes to produce almost any mosaic pattern you would want. On top of that, they are easy and cheap to repair because you can simply pull out one or two pavers, and replace. Pavers are good choices for driveways, patios, walkways, and planters. They can be used for facing on walls to carry a hardscape theme through your landscaping. Bridges can be created with pavers. They can be used as design elements in concrete and an alternative to joints on driveways. They can be used to create patters and borders to driveways and patios, borders for grass, and as a surface choice for bancos. Pavers are probably poor choices for athletic courts or areas that often under water. Other than that, pavers can be used just about anywhere.

Paver installation ideas

Another feature of pavers is that the joints between each paver allow slow absorption of water. That helps prevent long-lasting standing water on your driveways and walkways. It also enables use of less slope than typical concrete installations. Pavers can also be used to add designs to concrete installation for a more sophisticated look or to carry a landscaping theme into the concrete from other places on your property. Rising Sun Landscaping & Maintenance recommends you consider using at least two sizes of pavers in the same area to allow more complex patterns and variety in design. In addition, we always recommend installing pavers on a bed of packed crusher fines, rather than sand, for more durability of your installation. Crusher Fines provide a more durable and stable installation than using sand. Paver edging is also important.

Pavers have lower repair costs

Repair cost for pavers is low because individually damaged pavers can be replaced. Even a large rework of a paver area can be less expensive. Rising Sun Landscaping and Maintenance repaired a large section of a customer’s paver landscape driveway that was undermined by a flood from a very heavy rain. An equivalent concrete driveway would have been undermined as well. Cost to replace a concrete driveway would have been high and included breaking out large sections of the old concrete and pouring new after replacing and packing lost soil. The paver installation cost was low, requiring the same soil replacement and packing, but reuse of the existing pavers in only the damaged areas.

Compare other options with pavers

Before you decide upon pavers, consider the other options available. You typically have five choices for surfaces that you may walk or drive upon. Compare them to help decide which options are best for you. The table represents some, but not all aspects of each type of surface in the table. If you have questions, call Rising Sun Landscaping & Maintenance to review and explain the best options for your landscape project.

Traditional options for driveway and

walkway surfaces

Materials listed below can be used for many purposes. In this table we suggest how they may be useful only as surfaces in such applications as driveways, walkways, and patios. “Natural Stone” category below has a wide variety of options that are difficult to capture in one table. For instance, flagstone may work well on a walkway or patio but be inappropriate for a driveway because it typically cannot bear the weight of vehicles without cracking. On the other hand, cobblestone has features similar to pavers, but are often more expensive.