How We Build
River Rock Drainage Beds and Flagstone Steppers
Rock beds that move water off a property and stay walkable, used in the narrow side yards where turf always fails.
A same-day quote. A locked price.
- Design & build under one roof
- Licensed, insured & locally owned
Get your free estimate
Tell us about the space and we will come look at it, then send a fixed price.
Photographs of work completed by our team. We do not caption these with a location, because they are not Dallas-Fort Worth projects. DFW work is photographed as it finishes and published separately.
How this goes together
Side yards are where turf goes to die
Narrow, shaded, and usually the route every roof downspout takes. Grass in that corridor is a losing fight, and the mud is a real nuisance. A rock bed accepts the water it was always going to get, stays walkable, and stops the seasonal reseeding.
It has to actually go somewhere
A rock bed on its own is a surface treatment. Where there is real volume, a perforated pipe in gravel runs under the rock to a discharge point, and the whole run is pitched to it. Decorative rock over a low spot with no outlet is a puddle with better presentation.
Fabric, not plastic
Woven filter fabric under the rock lets water pass into the soil while keeping fines from migrating up and silting the bed. Sheet plastic does the opposite: it traps water on the surface and turns the bed into a slow-draining tray. It also degrades and starts surfacing in pieces within a few years.
Steppers set for real use
Flagstone steppers get bedded on compacted aggregate and set level, at a stride spacing walked out on site. A stepper that rocks underfoot is a trip hazard, and one set to a tape measure rather than a stride never feels right to walk.
Specification
- Stone
- Washed river rock, graded, over filter fabric
- Steppers
- Natural flagstone, set level and stable
- Sub-drain
- Perforated pipe in gravel where volume warrants
- Fabric
- Woven filter fabric, not sheet plastic
Services involved
Other builds
Want this built on your property?
Tell us about the space and we will give you honest direction and a fixed price.