KolorScape Pea Gravel 50 lb Bag, 0.5 Cu Ft Rounded Stone

What It Is For

• Beds and borders, as a permanent alternative to wood mulch that never needs topping up.
• Planters and containers, as a top dressing or a base layer.
• Informal paths and walkways, where a fine rounded gravel is pleasant to walk on.
• Drainage areas and downspout outfalls, at a domestic scale.
• Between pavers and stepping stones, as a loose fill.

Specifications

How Many Bags You Need

Oldcastle prints the coverage on the bag: a half cubic foot bag covers approximately 4 to 6 square feet at 1 inch deep, or about 3 square feet at 2 inches. Their own rule of thumb is to multiply your square footage by 0.33 for a 2 inch layer, or by 0.5 for a 3 inch layer.

The One Real Advantage of Small Gravel

Colorado State University Extension reports that pea gravel improves water infiltration into soil, particularly in short intense downpours, while larger rocks increase runoff. Even a thin layer of gravel mulch has been shown to double the amount of rain that reaches the soil, and a three inch layer can increase infiltration many times over. That is the opposite of what most people assume about stone, and it is a genuine reason to pick a small gravel over a large decorative stone in a planted bed.

Stone Mulch Against Wood Mulch, Honestly

• Stone wins on permanence. Wood needs topping up every year or two. Stone stays for years.
• Stone wins on slopes and in wind. Wood chips blow and wash away, gravel stays put.
• Stone wins near structures, because it does not attract termites and ants the way organic mulch can.
• Wood wins on soil health. It decomposes, feeds soil life and improves compaction over time. Stone does not.
• Stone moves more heat into the soil. That can push tender plants into growth early in spring.
• Stone is hard to remove. Once it silts in with soil and leaf litter it has to be dug and screened out, not raked off. Plan on it being permanent.

On Landscape Fabric Underneath

Worth knowing before you buy a roll of it. Colorado State University Extension advises against fabric under either stone or wood mulch. Weed seeds blow into the gravel and germinate on top of the fabric, rooting into and through it, while the fabric itself eventually clogs and disrupts soil life. A clean edge and occasional hand weeding tends to outperform it.

What Is and Is Not on the Bag

We would rather tell you what is documented than pad the page. KolorScape is a bagged landscape stone brand distributed by Oldcastle Lawn and Garden, and Oldcastle does not publish technical data sheets for these products the way a cement or sealer manufacturer does. There is no washed designation, no gradation, and no ASTM size number on any bag in this range. Everything on this page comes from the printed bag panel or Oldcastle item data. Where a figure is not published, we have left it out rather than guessed.

The manufacturer's technical data sheet (coverage, joint width, cure and rain-safe times) and safety data sheet are collected in the TDS and SDS library. Every figure on this page comes from those sheets.