Ideas for outdoor areas, garden, garden landscaping - suggestions, tips?

Gravel or chippings under the stones or not needed?

Under the beams there is only soil.
Have I thought about putting gravel under the stones? Not yet. I would only use gravel for height adjustment. They don't have to lie as precisely flat as patio slabs. It's just about a border between grass and shrub bed/hedge, if you want that. If they are at ground level, you can mow over them with the lawnmower.

A few weeks ago, we created about 40 sqm of prairie garden. I'm already quite curious to see how everything will develop next year.

Should you put edging stones between the bed and the lawn or is a lawn edging stone enough?

As a border, we used clinker paving stones laid in concrete. Lawn and bed are at the same level so that Robbie can drive over them. I'm also glad we did it this way; otherwise, the lawn would grow into the bed and it looks so shabby.

Did you plant the prairie beds as densely as the recommendations are? I have looked at planting plans. My mother and mother-in-law believe I can remove or heavily prune the first plants after 2 years because it is too crowded. Especially with the ground covers, they think half is enough. I hope it will be time next year. The outdoor area is somewhat behind.

What is a prairie garden, I have never heard of it. What characterizes a prairie garden?

Shrubs, grasses, flowers that tolerate dryness, heat, cold (climate similar to the prairie) Instead of wood chips or bark mulch, stones are first spread until the ground covers cover everything Relatively little effort once everything has grown in and the ground covers have spread. I thought of it because I have a large piece of outdoor area in front of the house that gets sun all day I don’t have time to water it at least once daily It should bloom, have plants of different heights It should not look terribly neglected if nothing is done for a few weeks Probably just a trend too

I haven’t followed planting plans very strictly and have spaced things out a bit freestyle. At the moment it looks pretty empty - because it was planted late in autumn. But when I look at the final size of some plants... I hope I got the spacing right enough so that I don’t have to thin out too much later. Some might not survive anyway. Who knows I also still hope that the [Wühlmäuse] that populated the meadow in front of our construction site don’t have the stupid idea to settle there again