Is it possible to fill paths in the garden with expanded clay? Types of country paths, equipped with your own hands. Mortar for cement screed with expanded clay and its proportions

Today we will talk about another material for the construction of country houses and decorating the garden area. Expanded clay is considered a modern and at the same time very popular building material. Now we will look at how expanded clay is made, its advantages and also its scope in landscape design and construction.

Production of expanded clay

Expanded clay gravel, or the more common name - expanded clay, is made from clay or shale, which is subjected to high-temperature firing. Firing takes place in special drum kilns with a length of up to 70 meters and a diameter of 2 to 5 meters. The stoves are installed at a slight angle. The starting material is poured into the upper part of the furnace and poured to the bottom, where an installed nozzle is waiting for it, which, in fact, burns the material. Clay is processed by fire at a temperature range from 1050 to 1300 o C for a period of no more than 45 minutes. As a result of processing, rounded, lightweight expanded clay pebbles are formed, which are used in construction and landscape design.

Expanded clay comes in three types: expanded clay gravel, expanded clay crushed stone and expanded clay sand. The difference between expanded clay gravel and expanded clay gravel is that in the first case the material has a more acute-angled shape, and in the second it is rounded.

The dimensions of expanded clay gravel can be as follows:

from 5 to 10 mm (small pebbles)

from 10 to 20 mm (the most popular fraction)

from 20 to 40 mm (larger stones)

Anything up to 5 mm in size is considered expanded clay sand.

It should be noted that today more than 250 factories in 50 different countries are engaged in the production of expanded clay, which indicates a high demand for this building material.

Advantages of expanded clay

It’s not for nothing that expanded clay has become so popular in the construction industry. The most significant advantages of expanded clay are:

Optimal price/quality ratio
Low water absorption of the material (no more than 20%)
High frost resistance (from 25 cycles or more)
Environmentally friendly material (no additives, only burnt clay shale)
Good sound and heat insulation properties
Expanded clay is lightweight
The material has high strength and durability
Expanded clay is resistant to acids

As you can see, expanded clay has many advantages, so it is advisable to use it in construction, especially if you are building light garden buildings.

As for the scope of application of expanded clay, this material is most often used as insulation, filler for concrete, and also as drainage for plants. Now we will take a broader look at the scope of expanded clay.

Applications of expanded clay in a summer cottage

As was said earlier, expanded clay can be involved both in construction work and in landscape design, let’s consider everything in order.

Expanded clay is most actively used as an inexpensive insulation for floors, basements, ceilings and walls. By insulating the roof and floor, you will not only create high-quality thermal insulation, but also provide the room with good sound insulation. Expanded clay pillow retains heat well, etc. It is light in weight and will not create large loads on the structure of the building.

As for public utilities, expanded clay has recently played an important role here too. As a result of a pipeline break, it is necessary to dig up soil at the accident site for further repairs, which is very difficult. The most common cause of an accident is water freezing in a pipe, causing the pipe to rupture. As mentioned earlier, expanded clay has good thermal insulation properties, so if you use it to fill a water supply channel running underground, the chance of pipes freezing is significantly reduced.

It is also advisable to use expanded clay for creating various types of foundations. Unlike gravel, expanded clay is light in weight and has fairly good strength, which means it can withstand the same loads, while transporting the building material will be simpler and less expensive. It should be noted that due to its thermal insulation properties, a foundation with the addition of expanded clay can be laid at a shallower depth.

In addition to creating concrete mortar, expanded clay is used in construction for creating expanded clay blocks having low weight and good strength and thermal insulation. Using expanded clay blocks, you can build both internal and external walls of a building.

Another area of application for expanded clay is road construction. When a road is being built in a wetland or on soil that has a high-lying aquifer, expanded clay bedding is often used, which quickly removes excess water and prevents flooding of the road.

Drainage pad Expanded clay drains water well, so such a pillow is often made under the foundation, as well as borders.

In landscape design Expanded clay also served an important purpose in the garden area. Due to its decorative appearance, expanded clay gravel is often used to decorate garden terraces and luxury terraces built on hilly areas.

In gardening Expanded clay is used as a good insulation material, as well as drainage for plant roots. Very often, expanded clay is added to the container with plants grown hydroponically, which, unlike soil, reduces the risk of plant diseases, as well as the appearance of various pests.

If you add expanded clay to fertile soil, the yield will increase, and by an order of magnitude. You can add expanded clay in 2 ways:

When planting trees and shrubs, a hole is created, a cushion of expanded clay is poured into its bottom, and soil is poured on top of it. We place the root system of the plant on the ground, sprinkle it with a little soil and fill the remaining space, again, with expanded clay. The resulting “soil-expanded clay cake” will well saturate the root system with nutrients and water.
An easier way is to mix a fine fraction of expanded clay with soil to further pour the mixture into the hole with the plant placed.

Both the first and second methods increase plant fertility with minimal costs for soil improvement.

The advantage of expanded clay, which added to soil with plants, is that the water saturation of plants increases, air exchange improves, and the roots are protected from drying out in hot weather and mold from forming in rainy weather.

Expanded clay can also be used to increase the fertility of indoor plants. To do this, fine expanded clay is added to the plant grown in a hydroponic pot.

Well, the last, important area of application of expanded clay at a summer cottage is that, therefore, if a layer of expanded clay is poured at the bottom, the liquid will quickly separate from solid waste.

As you can see, expanded clay has a lot of advantages and a wide range of applications, both in construction and in gardening and even in landscape design, so it makes sense to purchase

use of this building material!

Expanded clay, a well-known construction material, is widely used in landscape and interior design and gardening. The breadth of its use is fully ensured by the unique properties of the material. It is light, porous and has a good appearance. The most important of its unique properties is chemical inertness.

Expanded clay in gardening

In gardening, expanded clay is used for plant drainage and soil mulching. This material perfectly allows moisture to pass through, and does not rot or mold. Its use for this purpose guarantees many conveniences. It quickly absorbs up to 20% of water, and then, if necessary, gradually releases moisture. This is facilitated by the special structure of the lumps, in which the porous mass is enclosed in a somewhat specific ceramic shell.

Installing expanded clay drainage is not particularly difficult and can be done in two ways:

Expanded clay chips are simply mixed with soil and poured into the hole with the plant.
The second method is more complicated and more effective. First, a cushion of expanded clay is poured at the bottom of the hole, after which soil is poured onto it and the root system is placed, sprinkled with soil. After this - another layer of expanded clay. The multi-layer system guarantees an excellent supply of water and nutrients to the plant roots.

The material is also suitable for mulching the soil. In the dry season, its use allows you to retain moisture reserves in the soil - the crumbs slowly warm up, and on the cold fractions in the morning, upon contact with heated air, abundant dew is formed, providing additional dry watering.

Expanded clay in landscape design

This material is generally quite practical. It is used to decorate garden paths and flower beds. It is poured under the paving stones, and then it additionally performs the functions of a drainage layer. The availability of expanded clay chips in different colors for sale provides rich possibilities for design. And low thermal conductivity will allow you to additionally protect them from winter frosts when decorating shrubs and plants.

Another way to use expanded clay in landscape design is to fill significant gaps between fruit trees and fill the fences of decorative ponds. This prevents the growth of weeds and gives the site a presentable appearance. Garden paths and paths covered with expanded clay will remain dry even in bad weather.

And it’s better to do this in advance than to rack your brains over a complex issue during urgent construction or site registration. Today, in order to facilitate all processes, we are studying the use of bulk materials in the country.

- Sand for the garden
- Gravel at the dacha
- Using dropouts in the country
- Using expanded clay in the country
- Pebbles: use in the country
- Crushed stone at the dacha
- How to use peat in the country?
- Asphalt crumbs
- Do you need perlite in your dacha?
- Bulk materials in landscape design (video)

We use bulk materials at our dacha almost every day.. In the garden, during the construction of a gazebo or restoration of an old path, during the construction of a water feature, or even when decorating the wall of a summer kitchen. They are available everywhere, but not everyone knows their purpose and knows how to work with them. We simply cannot physically list every material that is related to the dacha theme, as well as construction and repairs on the site, decoration, decoration and landscape design, since there are hundreds of them. Therefore, we will only talk about the most popular and in demand, which we use most often. Immediately, even before the start of our conversation, DachaDecor.ru invites you to actively participate in the discussion of the article and leave your comments in a special column.

So, bulk materials for the garden, their purpose and use.

We will not describe the materials themselves, their chemical composition or the production process, since we believe that it is most important to understand what is used and where. We present the rest of the data, advantages, disadvantages of bulk materials and comparison tables little by little, talking about various country works, construction, the use of materials in decoration, and so on.

Sand for the garden

Sand is a fine-grained bulk material that we use quite often. Sand acts as a filler in the preparation of concrete for construction, as a “cushion” for laying paths, for diluting materials when constructing blind areas, platforms, and fills.

This purpose can be called classic, but at the dacha everything changes, and we use materials more practically than for their main purpose. So, in addition to preparing concrete for the foundation for gazebos and other buildings, in addition to using sand in decorative works when creating a landscape, as well as adding material to the soil for the highest quality and proper cultivation of some plants, we even store carrots in sand and use it to dry low parts of the site, we create sandboxes on children's playgrounds.

Such wide distribution makes bulk material very popular at the dacha; you just need to select the right sand for different jobs - river sand, quartz sand, quarry sand, artificial sand and other types.

Gravel at the dacha

We use gravel very often. Of course, not all summer residents are familiar with this sedimentary rock, which can be processed before use, since many of us buy a plot for recreation, and often it is already fully prepared for this. Beautiful design, a small garden and a flat lawn, a house for living and a relaxation area... naturally, no more work and only relaxation. But most summer residents are accustomed to working in the countryside, which means that bulk material must not only be known, but also be able to be used in work.

There are many uses for gravel, but most often we need it for construction and serious work. Construction of a house or filling a site, geoplastics in landscape design and the formation of paths, the creation of stone gardens and rocky placers, the construction of access roads or areas for temporary parking of cars, drainage layers or even full-fledged sewage pits... gravel or similar materials are needed everywhere, including We choose based on cost, reliability, ease of use and other characteristics.

Using dropouts in the country

Screening is a loose building material of a fine fraction, obtained by crushing rocks and sifting to obtain materials of different sizes and purposes. Screenings can be limestone, gravel or granite, and are used in the country depending on the type.

Screenings can be used as a filler in the preparation of various concretes, but in the country it is a bedding material, inexpensive and reliable, which we choose for repairing areas in and around the yard, for backfilling areas that need to be leveled, and so on. If you think more globally, for example, developing your summer cottage not only for vegetables and fruits, but also for business, then the screenings can be added to special mixtures for the production of decorative stone, paving slabs, the creation of vertical fencing structures, in general, to launch the material into construction and local production.

Using expanded clay in the country

Expanded clay, expanded clay gravel and expanded clay crushed stone are fairly light bulk materials that can be used for a variety of purposes. Having truly impressive characteristics, expanded clay is suitable for a huge number of country jobs. We have already considered many of them and even studied them in detail, but today there is a little more information.

So, expanded clay is an excellent material for insulating a wide variety of structures. We have already insulated the floor of a new bathhouse that we were building at the dacha with it, we suggested using it as insulation for the floor of a change house, which we were also talking about recently, but most importantly, we used expanded clay to insulate the house.

At the moment, this is a really popular material to ensure maximum energy savings. It is suitable for walls, floors and ceilings, but in the latter case it is used from the attic side.

In addition, expanded clay is very good for external work, namely in landscape design. Medium-sized, lightweight granules serve as decoration for the soil surface, as insulation, and even as a filler for drainage structures. Bulk material is often used to produce other materials for construction - expanded clay concrete blocks, from which you can build not only gazebos, patio areas and makeshift buildings, but also full-fledged residential buildings.

Pebbles: use in the country

Pebbles are not a material that is incredibly popular in construction or decoration, but it is actively used in some specific works.

Pebbles are rounded rock fragments, smooth pieces of different sizes, which can be oval, round, irregular, but smooth in shape. This is due to the influence of water currents and waves in coastal areas.

Pebbles in a country house can be used in interior decoration, but we will not go into the interior styling of residential buildings and cottages, because we are more interested in the site itself. And here pebbles also occupy a serious place, if, of course, they are taken into account in landscape design. Bulk material stylizes the surface of many soil objects, is a decoration for paths or a direct backfill material, and can also serve as a decorative and protective layer on the soil. Special decorative pebbles look very nice, but you will have to pay a tidy sum for them.

Crushed stone at the dacha

We have considered this material several times, perhaps without much detail, but most importantly, we know almost all areas of its application.

We need granular bulk material, which is obtained by mechanized crushing of rocks, for construction, laying foundation “pillows” and drainage layers, for the production of building mixtures, filling areas, working with geoplastics, complex leveling of areas or site preparation.

Thanks to the many positive characteristics of gravel, as well as the possibility of purchasing crushed stone of different fractions for summer cottage work, the material can be used not only for its main purpose, but even for decorative purposes.

How to use peat in the country?

Peat is a mineral known to almost every person, which is an agricultural ore, fuel, insulation material, and fertilizer. Therefore, summer residents certainly understand what we are talking about.

This bulk material, which is used very often in dachas, is not used for decorative purposes, but in the garden and vegetable garden it is simply irreplaceable, as well as in home floriculture.

Of course, there are a lot of benefits from peat, but there can be just as much harm, since the components released can be not only useful, but sometimes even harmful. It all depends on the scope and composition of peat, its nature and other indicators that you should definitely think about before choosing peat for use on your own summer cottage.

Chips, sawdust and crushed wood for the garden

We know for sure that more than 30% of summer residents have not yet used these materials on the site, and in general, they simply do not know why they are needed or how they can help on the farm. Therefore, we decided to tell you why you need shredded wood in your dacha.

By and large, almost all wood particles that have undergone mechanical processing show the same results, only over different periods of time, and therefore are used in different ways.

First of all, it should be stated that wood chips are suitable for mulching the soil, heating, fertilizing, and even for decorative decoration of the site. But depending on the type of wood, fraction and type of wood bulk material (we are also talking about shavings and crushed wood), it may have different specifics. For example, fruit tree sawdust is good for smoking, crushed wood is good for making compost, etc. Therefore, it is important to understand the material and also have a garden shredder in the garage!

How to use granite chips in the country?

Granite chips are fine- and medium-fraction bulk material, which is produced by crushing and mechanical processing of rocks. We rarely talk about this material, since cheaper or even higher quality materials are used, but this does not mean that granite chips have no place in the country.

The material is one of the components for the production of slabs and blocks for roads and paths, and is used as a decorative filling for flower beds and other flower beds. It has many advantages, but has certain disadvantages, and therefore if you decide to sprinkle garden paths with granite chips or decorate a new flower garden in the country with the material, contact us and we will tell you about it in more detail. To do this, you can go to the section that is specifically designed for consultations - Answers to questions!

Asphalt crumbs

Asphalt crumbs for a summer residence are not considered indispensable, since there are other materials that are better suited for a larger number of jobs. But this material also has its uses, since in many cases there is an excellent opportunity to get this building material almost free of charge.

Asphalt crumbs are laid on paths and entire roads more densely than crushed stone or sand. Since the material is made from old, recycled asphalt, it has a certain amount of bitumen residues that compact the finished embankment and make it almost homogeneous.

Due to the inclusion of additional components in the composition of the material, asphalt crumbs in the country can become a material for landscape decoration of garden areas and individual objects.

Do you need perlite in your dacha?

Everyone uses those construction or auxiliary materials that they know and understand, and to which they have access. Therefore, we can say for sure that if it is possible to get perlite for your dacha, it will not hurt.

The material, which is a rock of volcanic origin, can be of different colors and have increased porosity. Thanks to these qualities, as well as many other positive characteristics, perlite acts as a sound and heat insulator, as a backfill for walls and floors instead of crushed stone and sand.

In addition, expanded perlite is used for cleaning water structures, and is suitable for treating lakes and ponds in case of serious contamination. But bulk material is most in demand in the country as mulch, a moisture regulator, a basis for growing seeds and cuttings, as well as storing rhizomes and bulbs. In this case, you need a special expanded perlite (agroperlite), which is convenient even for preparing planting mixtures, uniform distribution of seeds in the soil, adjusting the amount of fertilizer, complex soil mulching, and decorative treatment.

Construction waste on a summer cottage

Construction waste is a mixture of everything, at first glance, unnecessary on the territory of the dacha. After construction and repair work, or dismantling of buildings and structures, roads and other objects, such a mixture can be formed from pieces of concrete, gravel, broken brick and stone, and other materials that were previously involved in construction and were part of the structures. After the demolition of an object or when mixing garbage in a car trailer, a certain substance is formed, which in quality can bypass some expensive building materials.

Of course, you can’t create a full-fledged project using such material and you can’t decorate it, but in half of the rough work, construction waste comes in handy. Filling an area for drainage or leveling, filling holes and ravines, laying foundations for paths and platforms, a layer for the foundation of small country houses - all this is possible with cheap, and more often, even completely free bulk material. Therefore, do not rush to throw away construction waste and pay for its removal, because it will still be useful at the dacha.

At this stage, we have looked at some materials that may be useful for summer cottage work. Of course, there are still a lot of similar ones left, such as slag, clay, prepared glass, cement, black soil and others, which can also be used for construction, backfilling or landscaping, but we will transfer these materials to other articles, where they will feel more comfortable by topic.

Bulk materials in the country are irreplaceable, but you yourself understand this perfectly well. Therefore, always make the right choice and focus on high quality, so that all work with sand, crushed stone or expanded clay is carried out correctly, and the resulting objects turn out to be durable, reliable and original. We recommend reading the article about dacha garbage and its new uses.

This material is well known to builders. But the construction of buildings is not the only area of application for expanded clay. Expanded clay gravel is widely used in gardening and landscape design.

You probably know what expanded clay looks like. This material is light particles with a melted surface and pores inside. Expanded clay is produced by firing clay or shale in special furnaces at temperatures from 1050 to 1300°C.

The color of expanded clay can be beige-gray, gray-brown, dark brown, terracotta

There are several types of expanded clay:

expanded clay gravel– characterized by an oval shape, while the size of the granules can be different: 5-10 mm, 10-20 mm and 20-40 mm;
expanded clay crushed stone– differs from gravel only in that its granules are cubic in shape with sharp edges and corners;
expanded clay sand– the same gravel, the granule size of which is less than 5 mm.

Expanded clay gravel with granules ranging in size from 10 to 20 mm is most often used in gardens and vegetable gardens.

Properties and advantages of expanded clay

This material has deservedly gained wide popularity not only among builders, but also farmers and landscape designers. What are the main advantages of expanded clay?

High strength. Expanded clay is durable, so it can be used repeatedly.
Good sound and heat insulation.
A light weight.
High frost resistance(from 25 cycles or more) and fire resistance.
Chemical inertness and acid resistance. Expanded clay is resistant to chemically aggressive environments.
Low water absorption(no more than 20%). Expanded clay prevents moisture from evaporating and thereby controls the water balance of the plant.
Environmental friendliness of the material. Expanded clay does not contain harmful additives, so it is safe for health.
Presentable appearance. Small pebbles of expanded clay fit perfectly into the design of any flower garden. They look natural, are barely noticeable and do not overshadow the decorative plants.
The optimum ratio of price and quality. The material is already inexpensive, but if you don’t throw it away after the first use and reuse it, then it will cost mere pennies.

Using expanded clay in the country

Thanks to these properties, expanded clay is used as insulation in the construction of garden buildings (for floors, walls, roofs, basements) and as a mortar filler for foundations. And also during the construction of garden paths. This is especially true in areas located in wetlands.

A special pillow is made from expanded clay, which forms a dense layer and withstands strong pressure

But most often expanded clay is used in the garden, vegetable garden and landscape design. It serves as insulation and drainage for the roots.

Expanded clay gravel provides plants with comfortable growing conditions: it improves the structure of the soil, making it air- and water-permeable, protects plant roots from drying out in hot weather and mold from forming in rainy weather, reduces the risk of plant diseases, as well as the appearance of various pests.

Mulching with expanded clay increases the productivity of fruit, berry and vegetable crops

Expanded clay can also be used when growing various crops in hydroponics.

You can increase soil fertility with expanded clay two ways:

When planting trees and shrubs, dig a hole, pour expanded clay gravel into the bottom, and on top of it - a small layer of soil on which to place the seedling. You need to sprinkle the seedling with a little earth on top, and fill the remaining space of the hole with expanded clay. This method is called layer-by-layer.
Simply mix small (about 5 mm) expanded clay with soil and plant the plant in the resulting mixture.

And fine-grained expanded clay can be used in the garden for mulching. This will help protect the soil surface from mold, as well as reduce the number of waterings and retain moisture in the soil for a long time.

In gardening, expanded clay is widely used for drainage under apple trees, pears, currants, grapes, etc.

Expanded clay in landscape design

Expanded clay not only brings great benefits to plants, but also performs a decorative function in the flower garden. Using this material, you can fill the resulting space in rock gardens and rockeries, and also, by filling in the holes, level the surface.

If traditional brown material seems boring, use decorative expanded clay painted in various colors