The Good Gravel Guide

Gravel – A Rocky History

Today’s sophisticated gardener is picking up on the esoteric use of gravel by those epitomes of calm – the Japanese, who have been perfecting their minimalist landscapes using gravel punctuated with rock features and the odd Bonsai for hundreds of years.

The UK take on gravel gardening is rather more eclectic, experimenting with rocks, paving and water features as well as a variety of architectural plants, such as ornamental grasses, ferns, shrubs and herbaceous plants – the only rule is to think more about plant form and less about flower colour.

What Makes Gravel Great?

The key attraction of gravel is that it never dies, nor does it grow – so it never requires cosseting. It provides an attractive low maintenance ‘fluid’ surface – making it ideal for filling difficult corners or hiding cock ups – if you can’t pave up to a wall simply infill the uncomfortable space with gravel!

Designing Your Gravel Garden

My gripe with gravel is that it is often used inappropriately or to excess. I prefer to limit gravel areas, creating ‘pools’ of gravel that complement other features, often using gravel to stretch paved areas either by giving a gravel edge or setting paving within gravel, thus ‘softening’ hard paving.

You can purchase many different colours and grades of gravel, which if used together can look great, or awful. I prefer to use complementary shades of the same colour and avoid white or very dark gravels, thus avoiding the ‘cemetery’ look.

Using fine and course grades of gravels, as well as groups of cobbles, or larger rocks can provide further interest. The difficulty here is making grouping look natural – one rule of thumb is to grade from fine to large when going up a slope. If in doubt check out you’re nearest stream to see how Mother Nature does it.

Which reminds me - gravel looks great when graded into a water feature. The gravel surface will hide the edge of your liner and allow the eye to wonder with ease to the waters edge.

Planting Up Your Gravel Garden

Concentrate on plants that have a strong form. Ornamental grasses and bamboos are very much in fashion, as are ferns. Mound forming Hebes look good in gravel, as do many ground hugging plants such as Artemisia, Juniper and Cistus.

© Matt Hewes
All articles are written by freelance horticulturist Matthew Hewes and can be re-printed or replicated by permission only. If you wish to use findmeplants copy on your website then this will be considered in exchange for a link and inclusion of the author’s name. Matthew Hewes works as a freelance garden writer and is happy to write gardening articles to order.

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