Using natural stone in outdoor beautification projects can make your space feel warm and look beautiful, as well as imbue different areas of your backyard with a different connection to nature. Want to give your fireplace, walkway, flooring, or wall a classic impact or modern flair? What can be best than flagstone paving?

Let’s unpack one of the buzzwords in the landscaping industry: Flagstone!

What is a flagstone?

You may get surprised knowing that flagstone is not a geological term, rather it is a collective term for a group of natural stones having similar attributes. This includes varieties such as sandstone, shale, and limestone. Second, harder varieties include igneous rocks like ignite. Lastly, the toughest types include quartzite and marble that belong to metamorphic rocks.

Flagstone is well-known and well-loved for its rich texture and vibrant, earthly colors. When many in the industry refer to flagstone, they mean regular and irregular paving stones, puzzle-type patterns that truly bring out its rustic nature.

For creating high visual interests and adding an earthly appeal to your landscape, these natural stones may be your ideal option. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be installed in the same irregular pattern to be considered flagstone.

Flagstone is a durable and sturdy natural stone material with non-slippery surfaces. Therefore, it is considered a great choice for exterior applications, where you need resistance to weather, wear, and tear, and load-bearing capacity is essential.

Why is it gaining popularity?

Obviously, no one can make a choice for you, but here we can help you with the pros, which includes not only the quality of the material but in broader terms:

1. Provides room to create an innovative design: The great thing about flagstone is that you can shape it to create many different, unique patterns. So there is no dilemma for you to design your backyard in a defined manner. After all, the only limit to your imagination with this material is the pattern, color, and size. The important thing to note here is the fact that you will want to tie your landscape together, as with many homeowners and inexperienced landscapers they lay their flagstone with large gaps in between. Unless you are not using it as a stepping stone, this is not how it is supposed to be used.

2. Neutral color tones for a rustic look: The color patterns are soft pastels ranging from beige, silver, grey, blue to red tones. If you want a modern clean look, you need to make sure to stick with a more rigid, repeating pattern and dark tones. On the contrary, for a rustic and natural look, you can go for irregular sizes, random shapes, and cream, beige, or grey tones. Moreover, little variations in color shades bring out the natural beauty of the flagstone.

Apart from flagstones used in patio paving, these can be used for a raised floor for bar areas, around water features, fireplace, pool deck, and steps, all with similar flagstone material setting a strong theme to support a rustic look throughout your backyard. This material will not let down your expectations!

3. Natural preamble surface to pass water: Most of the natural stones, flagstone, in particular, are tough, dense pavers with a nice grip for a non-slippery surface. This also means the water passes swiftly instead of retaining or creating clogs of minerals upon the water getting dry from the surface. To simply put, the water doesn’t seep into the soil in between your stone pavers, you don’t have to take any additional steps to manage runoff. However, it also depends on the installation method you opt for. Your garden patio or open patio will never retain any kind of water, it is all about leaving flagstone with natural surfaces, the coarse surfaces of the stone are what enhance pure textures.

4. Earthly natural appeal: You will have a completely natural feel when you place large-sized and irregularly shaped flagstone laid without any fillers and big-sized grout spaces. What’s more, to make the space in between fuller and to create a beautiful landscape design on your patio you can grow hybrid grass.

5. Enjoy high-durability with flagstone paving: The natural stone plus the base, both decide about the durability factor. Though with any natural stone you will require some regular maintenance. Assuming they were correctly installed in the first place, the requirements for maintenance should be minor. Freezing winters can be hard on most materials used today for patios and backyard, since water gets soaked into the surface, the concrete expands and leads to cracks. This can lead to multiple forms of damage to concrete and other stones that are less durable, but flagstone is a strong substance that is weather-resistant and also has a low-bending rate.

Now that you know the basics of flagstone, let’s dive into the design ideas that you can definitely incorporate in your landscaping!

Variety of Ideas to Enrich the Outdoors with Flagstone Paving Stones

1. Oomph your backyard with a unique patio: To fit your home and landscape design, you can select the stone, color, and texture of your choice and design the patio you have always dreamed of. Plus, for this highly functional space, you will need natural stones that are perfect for high-traffic areas, this is where rough-textured, slip-resistant, regular, or irregular flagstones make a perfect choice.

2. Build a walkway or pathway: What’s better than using irregular stones winding through your garden interspersed with grass and other plantations? Moreover, with flagstone pathways, you don’t have to worry about your paths getting slick with water.

3. Create a low retaining wall in your landscape: When stacking flagstones one on top of the other, you can either stack them dry or use mortar to hold them together straight up, for a sturdier and long-lasting wall that stands the test of time.

4. Create edges around your plantation for a clean and cohesive look: A simple border with flagstones that goes around your landscape to make the way clean and keep your grass away from the driveways makes the whole look more polished. Depending on the shape you decide, stone edges will make your landscape look more modern and geometric rather than a cultured look. The thing is you can easily find the color and shape or simply contrast it at Strata Stones.

5. Upgrade your water feature with a rustic border: If you have used the previous idea, that is flagstone as edges, then you would know that these are heavy enough to hold down liners for ponds and also make a great border for water features. And the feature that we discussed above works great here, which means, it will absorb water instead of causing runoff. If clean edge and contemporary aesthetics are your vibe, then you can go for this addition!

6. Rustic outdoor gets pin-worthy with a fireplace: If you are thinking of making your winter nights awesome then you should consider using flagstone for building a firepit. The unique texture and rustic color of the stone, along with furniture complementing it, will definitely make your corner pin-worthy. For a seamless look, you can opt for the same colored stone as the patio or use more contrasting colors to grab the attention of visitors or just to make the place more attractive.

Without a doubt, each type of material has its advantage. While, flagstone may not be the cheapest material out there but its versatility, natural colors, and shapes definitely make it a worthwhile investment. If you are confused, our specialists can help you make the best choices for your outdoor patio design and if you are looking to add other hardscaping features!