If you want to keep your patio looking good and in great condition, you need to carry out a little bit of maintenance. It’s important to keep your paving clean and free of dust and weeds and to maintain the joints. With these tips, you can keep your patio garden looking great.
Regular Brushing
Brush your patio regularly to clear off the dirt and debris and to prevent any seeds from germinating and growing into plants that could disturb your slabs. If you haven’t cleaned your paving slabs in a while and small weeds are starting to grow, then a good brush will help to break them up and keep them from growing more or spreading.
Power Washing
Brushing your patio isn’t enough to keep your patio clean. Sometimes you will need a more thorough clean too. You can use warm soapy water or a floor cleaner for this, but make sure that whatever you choose is acid-free. An acid-free cleaner could cause damage to the concrete or stone. You can hire a professional to power wash for you. If you’re doing it yourself, be careful around the joints in the patio, as the high pressure could break off or damage the mortar.
Scrubbing with a hand brush takes longer and is harder work, but it could be the better option if your patio is more delicate or already damaged. Work on a small area to loosen grime and dirt. Wash down with clean water afterward.
Frequent Weeding
If your patio has damaged mortar or has wide spaces between your paving stones, you will need to weed regularly to prevent overgrowth. Always try to remove weeds at the roots, so they can’t grow back.
If pulling the weeds isn’t doing enough to get rid of them, the next option is a weedkiller. Contact weedkillers are sprayed onto the plant leaves and are usually an all-purpose week killer. Systemic weedkillers are more thorough, as they are taken in by the plant to its root system. Systemic products are slower but usually give better results.
Before you decide on the weedkiller to use, identify the weeds you are dealing with and then carefully read the manufacturer’s label to make sure you won’t damage the surrounding garden.
Fill Joints
Joints play a very important function by linking the concrete or stones together and providing some structure. Cleaning these joints can be tricky, as this is the most vulnerable area of patios.
As well as keeping the joints weeded, you will also need to patch and repair these joints occasionally. When you pull weeds up, this will also remove sand from between the joints. You will then need to fill in the gaps, or you will end with more weeds growing in their place. You can use a jointing stabiliser to help bind together the sand particles to slow down their erosion. If the mortar is starting to show signs of cracking or flaking away, there are various ways to make repairs.
