10 Ways to Enhance Your Home Outdoor Space with River Stones

It was a sunny morning. Spring was at its peak, and the blooming colorful flowers enticed us to come out and soak in some soft sun rays from our garden patio. Vanessa, my daughter, was examining the colorful river stones that had arrived as samples to help us decide whether we liked them or not. 

In fact, we were waiting for Jenny Peterson, an avid landscape designer who was to expertly enhance the aesthetics of our outdoors that matched the glory of the blooming spring. The moment Jenny arrived, the first question Vanessa excitedly asked the expert was- “What makes the river stone look so beautiful and natural?”

“It is the gushing flow of water in the rivers that have smoothened the surfaces of natural rocks found in riverbeds, seashores, or streambeds,” Jenny replied softly. “This is why we call them River Stones, because it is nature that gives them different shapes, what we call pebbles, boulders, or gravels,” she added.

After this fun little chat, I now got down to business, showed around the different areas of our outdoor garden, and asked Jenny if she would be willing to share her inputs on how I could enhance my home outdoor spaces with these beautiful River Stones.

In the long but fruitful discussion with her,   she suggested these 10 Ways to Decorate Your Landscape with Natural Pebble Stone to improve landscape designs surrounding the home.

There’s a simple breakdown of these 10 outdoor home decor ideas:

10 Outdoor Home Decor Ideas with River stone:

Tip #1 – Fill River Stone between Stepping Stones

Laying a stepping stone using natural stones doesn’t mean you always lay stones amidst the lustrous lawn. You can be creative a little bit and shape the stepping stone’s path by additional components such as edge restraints, green hedge with plants, and fill river stones of the same sizes or different sizes between natural stone stepping stones.

You have the freedom to play with different colors and textures of river stones and create various themes including color sync or contrast.

Recently, a free-form walkway with stepping stones and gravel or pebbles is a new trend in landscape or garden design. As its name implies, flagstones are laid somewhat randomly in a wide path amongst the river stones as the background fillers.

Jenny draws a rough sketch for our landscape design and points out where we can create free-form walkways & how we can grab immense river stone benefits in landscaping.

Tip #2 – River Stones as Rock Edge between Stone Path & Grass Ground

The next move Jenny was drawing a sketch of walking paths and driveways in our landscape. she said, “when you design a path made of natural stones, don’t forget to make arrangements for proper drainage.” Surprisingly, instead of drawing a drainage pit along the border of the walkway/driveway, she placed a mix of different types of pebbles in between the edge of the path and ground grass.

She explained, “we will dig the drainage pit as per recommendations by experts, but we will fill it up with river stone to enhance the aesthetics of the entire design.” Indeed, black and gray pavers of the path and greyish tone of river stones juxtaposed with the green grass look robust.

I have praised Jenny’s vision to amalgamate utility with beauty.

Tip #3 – Use River Stone to Cover the Ground

Now Jenny has paid attention to the backyard. Black slate stones were her choice for patio and stepping stone paths. She preferred large slabs in square and rectangular shapes as stepping stones with symmetrical gaps in between two adjacent stones.

The rests of areas like open ground and shadows beneath the symmetrically trimmed green trees were filled with bright white river stones. She has an eye on beauty in design and another on a low-maintenance lawn. 

I practically know how laborious and time-consuming tasks of running lawnmowers regularly are.

Read More about it