I’m working on designing a French Country-style front garden for a client, and a large part of it is taken up by the driveway. Right now, the whole yard is dominated by concrete – driveway, walkways, steps. It’s too much! Anyway, I was thinking of using some sort of permeable pavement or gravel/grass country-lane type drive. In my research, I came across this great Eco Sherpa post about green driveways. Now I totally want to do one!
The photo above is an example of porous pavement created using the Grasspave2 system by Invisible Structures. It shows freshly-laid sod in a Victoria residence. The grass area doubles as parking space and a front lawn. According to their website, Grasspave 2 “is a structure which provides incredible load bearing strength while protecting vegetation root systems from deadly compaction,” all while protecting the environment. Sweet!
I love your blog. It’s great that you have so many links in your articles. Your blog is a great sorce for information as well as just plain fun to read.
Key phrase: “freshly-laid sod”.
What will happen when you actually drive a car over it? Or leave a car parked on it? How will this look in a month? A year? In ten+ years? Can it be repaired piecemeal or does it need to be rebuilt?
This kind of surface seems suited only for temporary overflow parking and vehicle access, such as emergency rights-of-way.
Our driveway will need to be replaced soon. I’d like to have something permeable to reduce surface runoff. I’m leaning toward some kind of dry-laid manufactured block.
Hi Chigiy! Thanks for visiting – and for your very kind words.
Xris – I wondered about that too. Most of the featured projects on Invisible Structures’ website were of emergency lanes, overflow parking, etc. I’ve written to them to find out how this would apply to daily-use situations such as driveways. Very curious indeed…
i don’t like it, a tar and chip driveway would be nicer and would go with the theme
I love it. Wonder how it would do with a single car, driven over it once, 2X a day at most……
I imagine that 2-3 car households would rip it up. But it might be ok for a 1 car household….
I’ll be watching to see if you get a response to your question.
Love this. Completely. And I’d like nothing better than to throw out the asphalt. But I might get some trouble from my boys for getting rid of their basketball court and my girls for getting rid of their chalk canvas. Maybe when the kids are gone . . .
Hi, just came across your blog, :D so glad to finally meet some gardener in vancouver.
This’s a nice idea to green up your driveway, but does it takes a lot to water them and keep them green? In summer time, Vancouver use about 40% of water to keep their lawn green, it seems a little bit much.
Can I put down, on an existing lawn, panels to creat a driveway over the lawn without digging up the existing lawn?
Back from France now, and have an update to all of our questions.
Xris (Flatbush Gardener) had it right: This is really only suitable for overflow parking and vehicle access, such as emergency rights-of-way. One car, twice a day, would likely be too much for it. The other permeable pavement options, like gravel, would work just fine. It’s just the grass part I like…
MiniME – Welcome! Glad to meet a fellow Vancouver garden blogger :) I’m sure this would be the same as any other lawn – it would take watering in the summer to keep it green. But like lawns, left to go dormant in summer, it would come back fresh and green in fall.
John – not sure what type of panels you have in mind. I’d contact a company like Invisible Structures for advice.
Drive ways used to be 2 lanes of concrete or gravel were the wheels travel and the rest of the space grass or any other low green ground cover.
I would like to make our drive way like that but my husband is worried that the grass will hold the moisture and rust out our vehicles faster.
Anyone know if this is a problem?
Hello!
well you don’t need to travel so far to look at how an ecogrid product works. TerraFirm Enterprises is based out of Vancouver – and it provides a great grid system that is designed for parking – even multiple cars. It has an interlocking tab system and reinforced edges – so it can withstand cars turning on the area.
I know this is an old post but I was curious on if you ever ended up getting a green driveway?