How much maintenance is a dry riverbed for front yard landscaping?

[jtvang125]

Just recently killed and ripped out everything in my front yard. I planted a few shrubs and ground cover plants so far but thinking of putting in a dry riverbed. My yard is L shaped with the sidewalk running along the base of the L (47' x 22'). I plan to have the riverbed cut diagonally down to the lower right corner of the yard. I already have a few river rocks and boulders in the backyard that I plan to reuse up front. The rest I can pick up free on CL and the pea gravel layering can be bought quite cheaply.

There's only one tree in the vicinity but far enough not to drop leaves on the rocks. The neighbor's lawn is taken care of by a gardener so I don't have to worry about clippings being blown over too. If I do a thorough job of using landscaping fabric underneath that should cut down on the weeds too. This should give me a nice focal point without much maintenance right?

 

[sdifox]

as long as you are ok with spraying weedkiller and blowing stuff off, it is fine.

 

[PowerEngineer]

You may be okay with pea gravel. Early on, I did something similar using river rock (1"-2" diameter) over fabric. After a couple of years enough dirt had fallen in around the river rock (on top of the fabric) that weeds and grass started to be a problem.

 

[Meghan54]

You may be okay with pea gravel. Early on, I did something similar using river rock (1"-2" diameter) over fabric. After a couple of years enough dirt had fallen in around the river rock (on top of the fabric) that weeds and grass started to be a problem.

Pea gravel won't stop weeds either because the exact same scenario plays out with it as it does with larger gravel sizes...may take a bit longer, but the end result will be the same. When we bought the house we're currently in 3 years ago, the front had beds covered with pea gravel. Weeds abounded. It was so bad the ultimate solution was digging up all the plants, weeds, gravel and recreated the beds with new bushes (jap. boxwood) and 3" of mulch, which seems to be working better than the gravel.

 

[NutBucket]

Weeds will always find a way....kinda like ants and cockroaches.

 

[sdifox]

That is why you get a propane burner like the road crew uses for asphalt crack repair.