Front Garden - Grass or Exposed Aggregate?

ripplyuk

My front garden is gravel with some large plant pots. Beside it there are big cherry blossom trees which, although beautiful in bloom, make an awful mess with their leaves. I spend half the year lifting these leaves from the gravel and I’m fed up with it. It can take over an hour each day. Since it’s gravel, I can’t use one of those leaf vacuums because it will suck the gravel up and even with a rake, I end up having lift most leaves by hand. 

Someone suggested exposed aggregate which will give the look of gravel but be easy to brush up or vacuum the leaves. The other option I’m considering is turning it back into a lawn, which would mean I can run the mower over it to lift the leaves. There are many layers of hardcore under that gravel so I think it would take a lot of excavation work to make it a lawn again. 

Which option would be cheaper? Are there any pros or cons or other options I haven’t thought of? 

Black_Cat2

Hi R, I use a leaf vacuum and find that I can suck up dry leaves without the gravel if I hover it just above the ground.  Usually get my OH to do it as the vacuum is quite heavy.  I also use a soft broom which just skims the leaves into a bigger pile and then can suck them up that way 🐈

Key for me is to make sure they are dry before doing anything. 

ripplyuk

@Black_Cat2 Unfortunately we get so much rain here, the leaves never seem to dry. Especially the bottom layer. I tried waiting for a week but they were still wet and then some start to rot into the gravel. I also can’t stand the messy look, so I like to clean them up quickly. 

Ebe_Scrooge

Would you be able to use the garden vac on "blow" mode so that you can blow the leaves off the gravel and onto somewhere where you can deal with them more easily?  Quite often you'll find you can blow the leaves even when they're wet, more easily than trying to suck them up.

ripplyuk

Ebe_Scrooge said:

Would you be able to use the garden vac on "blow" mode so that you can blow the leaves off the gravel and onto somewhere where you can deal with them more easily?  Quite often you'll find you can blow the leaves even when they're wet, more easily than trying to suck them up.

Possibly, but I’d have to blow them onto the small path beside the house and then lots would end up on the driveway (which is mostly dirt with some old gravel). Since I have to be clearing these leaves several times a week, I’d prefer to avoid using a leaf blower since they’re heavy and noisy and when we tried it, it couldn’t remove the very small leaves from the gravel so I had to go around collecting them by hand anyway. 

Even with me collecting the leaves carefully, there is still some build-up amongst the gravel which is now starting to look grubby. I could add more, but long-term I think a surface I can sweep or mow would be better. Unless it’s going to cost a fortune to change it. I’ve measured it. It’s 15m x 4.5m but I haven’t got any quotes yet because I don’t know what would be best to do. 

Justagardener

Putting it back to lawn would be expensive and the work that comes with a lawn under trees. Exposed aggregate is great but could be expensive. 
Sounds pedantic but what size gravel is it? Is it the 10mm peashingle type or larger?

twopenny

I use the blower function on the garden vac.

Used to have a Flymo that had a function to blow under damp leaves and move them. Don't know if they still do but may be worth investigating. I could blow them so they rose off the ground and resettled then sucked them up into the bag.

The easiest thing would be slabs. Depends on if you could place them on top of the gravel/hardcore sucessfully.

ripplyuk

Justagardener said:

Putting it back to lawn would be expensive and the work that comes with a lawn under trees. Exposed aggregate is great but could be expensive. 
Sounds pedantic but what size gravel is it? Is it the 10mm peashingle type or larger?

It’s bigger than that. I think it’s about 20mm or maybe slightly bigger. 

Emmia

Could you lay artificial grass that you sweep instead?

ripplyuk

Emmia said:

Could you lay artificial grass that you sweep instead?

I really don’t like artificial grass. I can see that it has it’s uses but it’s the last thing I’d want.