ᐅ Splash guard for the facade and transition from lawn to flower bed

Hello dear friends,
I am interested in how you have solved the following issues:

1: We initially planned to create flower beds along some of the house’s exterior walls. We like the idea of not just seeing the bare facade in the garden but also some greenery there.
However, we have been advised to lay gravel along the facade to act as a splash guard, preventing strong rain from splashing dirt onto the walls. That sounds reasonable at first.
But we really don’t like gravel. Bark mulch could be an alternative. Are there other ways to create flower beds next to exterior walls while still preventing heavy rain from making everything dirty?

2: Along the edges of the property, we want to install a privacy screen. Currently, Siberian larch is our preferred choice. We also want to create flower beds along the privacy screen so that, over the years as everything grows, we can enjoy “green walls.”
We don’t want to make the beds straight and parallel to the screen but rather slightly curved, with rounded corners to create a more natural look.
Initially, to avoid classic lawn edging stones, we considered using a lawn edging strip, as it is less visually intrusive.
However, we were advised to use stones after all because we plan to use a robotic lawn mower. With the strip, it would always leave a strip of uncut grass along the edge, whereas with stones, the mower can pass over them and no strip remains. This sounds logical.
Does anyone have experience or know of alternatives to classic stones that don’t cause this uncut strip problem?

I would plant ivy or another evergreen there. When rain first hits the leaves, only a small amount of dirt (from the leaves) will reach the wall, if any at all.

I can’t say whether bark mulch is suitable. However, I would avoid it.

For one thing, the bark decomposes, and so I expect the wall would eventually get quite dirty. Additionally, birds like to search for food in the mulch and tend to scatter it around, which means you’ll have to keep sweeping it up repeatedly.

Gartenfreund schrieb:

I would always plant ivy or some other evergreen there. If rain first hits the leaves, only a small amount of dirt (from the leaves) will reach the wall, if any at all.

I can’t say whether bark mulch is suitable. However, I would advise against it.

On one hand, the bark decomposes over time, and I expect the wall would eventually become quite dirty. On the other hand, birds often look for food in the mulch, and they tend to scatter it further away, meaning you’ll have to sweep it up repeatedly.

Do you mean ivy as a ground cover, or something else?

Exactly.

I only intended to use ivy as an example.

Place the splash guard with gravel. This prevents standing water. Plant the bed in front, and you won’t see the splash guard strip anymore.

An alternative to stones can be wooden beams. We have embedded them.