ARS Landscape Materials and Supply announced an expansion of its aggregate inventory ahead of the winter hardscape construction season, effective November 11, 2026. The Arvada supplier said the expanded stock covers crusher fines, along with red mulch, and is aimed at contractors and property owners who build patios, retaining walls, and drainage systems through the months when planting stops.
Hardscape construction runs on a different calendar than planting. Denver's normal December high temperature falls from 47 degrees at the start of the month to 44 degrees at the end, and the normal low from 21 degrees to 18 degrees, according to National Weather Service figures calculated from the 1991 to 2020 climate normals published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Daytime conditions through much of a Front Range winter stay workable for excavation, base placement, and compaction.
Aggregate forms the structural layer beneath most of that work. The Colorado Department of Transportation, in Section 304 of its 2023 Standard Specifications for Road and Bridge Construction, directs that an aggregate base course deeper than six inches be built in two or more layers of approximately equal thickness, that no single compacted layer exceed six inches, and that each layer be compacted to at least 95 percent of maximum density. Those requirements govern highway work rather than residential patios, but base material is placed in lifts and compacted as it goes in both.
Winter also fixes the depth at which parts of that work must sit. Section R403.1.4.1 of the Denver Residential Code, 2021 edition, sets the local frost line at 36 inches and requires footings for permanent structures to bear at or below it unless another approved method of frost protection is used. Retaining walls, freestanding walls, and column footings built during the winter are excavated against that requirement, and the excavation generates demand for backfill and drainage material.
"Most winter orders are for material nobody sees once the job is finished, such as the base under a patio or the rock around a drain pipe. The added stock is aimed at that part of the project," said Rina Bindi, Owner of the Arvada-based supplier.
ARS Landscape Materials and Supply has operated in the Denver area since 2010. The company's catalog lists nineteen gravel and rock products and two sands, among them river rock, cobble stone, washed and mason sand, crusher fines, and granite road base.
Road base sits at the structural end of that rock and sand range rather than the decorative end. Subsection 703.03 of the same state specification defines a Class 6 aggregate base course by gradation, requiring that all of the material pass the one-inch sieve, that 95 to 100 percent pass the three-quarter-inch sieve, and that the plasticity index not exceed six. Whether a particular yard product satisfies a particular class is determined by the engineer specifying the project.
Drainage aggregate serves a second purpose in local soils. Colorado State University Extension, in its GardenNotes 219 fact sheet on soil drainage, published in October 2015 and reviewed in September 2022, describes soils with greater than 20 percent clay content, along with compacted soils, as soils in which water moves slowly or may not move at all. The same fact sheet describes a French drain as a lined trench filled with rock or gravel, typically with a pipe in the bottom.
ARS delivers landscape material by the cubic yard directly to residential and commercial properties, and customers may also load at the yard. Aggregate is ordered in that same cubic-yard unit while a base course is specified by compacted depth across an area, so the two measures have to be reconciled before an order is placed. Winter hardscape work turns on that reconciliation more than on availability, because a base that comes up one lift short is a return trip rather than an adjustment.
ARS Landscape Materials and Supply is a bulk landscape material supplier based in Arvada, Colorado. The company has operated in the Denver area since 2010 and delivers soil, compost, mulch, rock, sand, and stone by the cubic yard to residential and commercial customers, in addition to offering excavation and grading services. For more information, visit the company website.
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For more information about ARS Landscape Materials and Supply, contact the company here:
ARS Landscape Materials and Supply
Rina BIndi
303-431-4675
gotdirt@arslandscapematerialsandsupply.com
9470 Indiana Street
Arvada, CO 80007
