The Love Of Natural Stone
/Here at Geoscape Landscape Architects, we love to use natural stone in our designs. It’s hard wearing, long lasting, feels nice underfoot and no two pieces are the same. However, we do have our favourites, among them are Bluestone, Granite, Travertine & Limestone.
The light colouring of Travertine and Limestone easily lend themselves to formal, classical or coastal styled landscapes. Travertine can be used filled or unfilled, it naturally has air pockets in its structure, creating a pock-marked appearance. Both Travertine & Limestone come in a variety of tones from white, cream, and yellow through to silver.
Alternatively, Granite and Bluestone are excellent for modern designs and for areas in the public sphere - they require less maintenance and tend to be slightly harder wearing than the lighter stones.
A mix of light and dark hard surfaces can be used in the same project to help delineate the functions of various spaces. Lighter stone can be used for main areas and darker stone for secondary zones - dark colours tend to recede visually and therefore won’t catch the eye as much as a lighter coloured stone.
The different colours of natural stone can also set the tone for a space. One recent residential design Tamara completed proposed natural cobbled Bluestone, for the main walkway and the separate driveway out the front to tie the new works into the heritage of the interurban home. While a lighter natural stone was proposed for the more family friendly zone around the pool in the back. The more intimate courtyard off to the side proposed large format Bluestone pavers with light coloured pebble between; designed to slow down the pace of the space and to tie the front yard and the back yard together.
In recent years the development of large format Porcelain tiles designed to look like natural stone or even timber, have created a cost effective alternative to natural stone. Timber look porcelain tiles used around a pool require less maintenance and they are salt-water and chlorine safe.
(Porcelain tiles that look like timber and granite can be seen in the images below, used as a backdrop for the smaller natural stone samples.)
