Why Sand is a Great All-Purpose Addition to Your Garden

Sand isn’t just something you build castles out of on a visit to the seaside. It can form an integral part of your garden too – although you have to be careful to pick the right type depending on what you want to use it for.

Madingley Mulch supply children’s sand – and many other types – to customers in Suffolk and across East Anglia; here we explain how sand is formed, and some of its key varieties and uses.

 

How Sand is Formed

Sand is formed when rocks break down from weathering and erosion – this process can take thousands and millions of years. The rocks travel down rivers and streams, eroding along the way due to the currents and colliding with river banks and other rocks, until they finally reach the ocean, when they are eroded still further due to waves and tides into the sand we see on beaches around the world.

The tan colour which these particles have is down to the presence of iron oxides in sand;, these substances are not fully broken down by the process of erosion.

 

Building Sand

Because of its innate strength (the rocks it originally came from) sand has plenty of uses in the construction sector. It helps provide strength and stability to other materials and also can be used on its own.

The other materials include ballast (which also includes sharp sand and graded gravel, and can help where concrete is needed in any project) and cement. You can also get different types depending on how fine the particles of sand are – for instance the aforementioned sharp sand can be used for a bed for patio and paving slabs, while soft sand can be used to mix mortar if you are building a brick wall or laying down some stone slabs.

 

Children’s Play Sand

There are plenty of studies which show how youngsters benefit from playing with sand – it helps their motor skills, their hand-eye co-ordination, their muscle development and their imagination and creativity – and let’s be honest, who doesn’t love building a good sandcastle?

It can also help with their social skills if they are sharing the sand ‘space’ with one or more other youngsters (either friends or family). However, you need to ensure that the sand is relatively fine, so they won’t hurt themselves playing in it.

At Madingley Mulch, our play sand is free of stones and is also stain free – meaning that a playtime sessions create problems for your washing machine or your children’s clothes.

 

Get Your Aggregates from Madingley Mulch

At Madingley Mulch, we don’t just supply all these types of sand, but a complete range of aggregates as well so we can effectively act as a one-stop shop for all your garden construction projects – whether you’re looking to lay patio slabs or set up a play area for your children.

Our range includes gravels, stones and drainage aggregates and sub-base aggregates including hardcore.

If you are interested in buying any of these just click on the above links and order them from our online shop; if you want any more information, you can call us on 01954 212144.

 

And We Can Deliver to your Door Too

We appreciate that sand – even the softer or finer mixtures – as well as the aggregates can be quite heavy and difficult to take away from our Cambridgeshire base, so we also offer a delivery service as well.

We now operate a sliding scale of delivery charges, from £2 per delivery unit if you are less than five miles from our Cambridge base, to £15 per unit if you are 30-40 miles away – and we can deliver even further away as well (call the number above for more details). The current lead time on all orders is between one and seven working days.

So we can act as your aggregate suppliers in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Suffolk, Essex as well as our home county of Cambridgeshire.

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