Key Uses for Sand in Your Garden

Sand isn’t just something that you find on beaches, it can be an essential tool for improving your garden. Here Madingley Mulch, who supply bags of sand to customers in Essex, Suffolk and our home county of Cambridgeshire, outline some of its most important horticultural uses.

 

For a Play Area

Your children can use a special mixture in their play area or sand pit. This sand tends to be much finer with fewer large items than regular ‘building’ sand.

The benefits of having a sandpit are well-known for children’s physical and mental health. It keeps them active, improves their hand-eye co-ordination, and shouldn’t get them too dirty. At Madingley Mulch, we supply children’s play sand which is free of stones and doesn’t stain.

Warning – don’t be tempted to spread children’s play sand on your plants, as this could harm them. This is because it is a different mixture to regular sand that usually has a higher salt content.

 

As a Building Base

Sand is a good base if you are laying paving stones or patio slabs. The reason is that it can hold just as firmly as cement, while still draining well, meaning that rain can easily escape through the slabs and into the soil.

It can also be used for screeding, a method of constructing a well-profiled bedding layer where flags or bricks or any other regular thickness paving slabs can be directly laid onto it with no need for any further levelling. It can also help if you need to render your garden wall.

At Madingley Mulch, we supply sharp sand, which is also known as building sand, which is ideal for bedding paving stones and patio slabs, as well as for external and floor screeding and external rendering. We also stock soft sand, which is great for mixing mortar to lay stone slabs or bricks. In addition, you can buy paving slabs from Madingley too.

 

As a Lawn Improver

Sprinkling some sharp or building sand over your lawn can work wonders for the grass, particularly if it’s already in poor condition. This is because it kills and prevents moss, and also improves drainage and air circulation.

This sand works particularly well on heavy clay soils such as those found in East Anglia, where the density of the soil means it can be difficult for the grass roots to grow healthily unless some sand is added. For more information on soil types, check out our previous blog here.

Don’t just sprinkle the sand onto the grass its own, as it is more effective when used as part of a wider lawn top dressing mix that also contains soil, peat and loam – and which we also supply at our site on the outskirts of Cambridge. You can also use sand underneath your lawn as part of a soil/sand mix, which is a good base for either turf or grass seed.

In both cases, results won’t be instant, but you should notice a marked improvement in the quality of your grass over time.

 

Bags of Sand in Essex from Madingley Mulch

If you have any questions about which type of sand is best for your garden project, give us a call on 01954 212144 and we’ll be happy to help.

We can supply your order to you in bulk bags, small bags or weighbridge collection. The minimum order for delivery is now £50. We have also introduced a new sliding scale based on the delivery distance, full details of which can be found on our delivery page. But don’t worry, we are still delivering to all the destinations we used to, including St Ives, St Neots, Newmarket, Royston and further afield.

And don’t forget to check out our offers section because we have some great seasonal bargains.

---

Back to blog