FAO Dak / anyone else who knows about gardens

[malfunction]

Finally got a garden company in to sort out our rubbish tip of a garden and part of what we're having done is getting some gravel (decorative aggregate) laid for the small front garden, side and patio... Got home last night and it looks lovely... But you sink in it like nobody's business... Should it be compacted or is that just for drives? There's no 'sub layer' AFAIK - just weed preventing membrane stuff on top of soil... It's not really bad but it's a bit like walking in snow - you can see where you've been - which is not quite what I was hoping for...? It's been laid to ~ 50mm depth if that matters.

Oh and anyone know what to do with a spare ton of the stuff? Bloody gardeners over estimated how much we need (and we bought it elsewhere)... We'd like to put the car on the drive not a bloody great bag of gravel. (@ me)

[Mrs Dak]

Gravel will naturally compact as you use it, compacting it mechanically would drive it into the membrane, damaging it and allowing all the lovely weeds through. Re, the spare ton of gravel, try an ad in the local paper - buyer collects (what price did you pay per ton?)

Dak

[malfunction]

Thanks for that - was a bit worried about it. Price was £51.50 per tonne (not ton apparently) inc VAT, exc delivery - was more like £100 / tonne with VAT and delivery. We used the "red & white 10mm" from:

http://www.cornishlime.co.uk/decorative_aggregates.htm

It's not quite the same colour as the photo though - it's now VERY obvious that the photo was taken when it had been washed off and was still wet... Originally wanted the pink limestone but they were 1 tonne short of what we needed in stock (oh the irony of it)...

BTW - sorry we didn't ask you to quote - being as we're only down the road from you (in Wokingham)... I wanted to but my wife was so keen to get it sorted that we went with the first quote we got!

Edit: This is supposed to be the cheapest place to get bulk bags of gravel in / around Berks:

http://www.grundon-recycle.co.uk/qpadworth.htm

But we wanted something other than the standard yellow colour you see everywhere...

[CocoPops]

Surely you should just spread the extra ton out over the top, it will settle and need topping up anyway won't it?