Gravel Garden Path - R. Rule

Garden Lover’s Ground Cover: Pea Gravel

The beauty of this inexpensive ground cover is that it complements whatever style of garden you have.

Gravel Garden Path - R. Rule

 

CHEAP + FABULOUS | Hardscape is pretty much everything in the garden that isn’t plants or water. It is the palette of materials a designer uses to create pathways and patios, arbors and decks; it is woodwork and metalwork and masonry. Hardscape elements are always best when they are linked together by a stylistic theme that is made better still when it is tied into the architecture of the residence.

One of my favorite hardscape materials is gravel.

I love gravel not just because it is inexpensive; I love it because it has been used in Italian, French, English and Japanese gardens for centuries, and because it has not been co-opted by any one particular garden style or period of garden history. Equally appropriate in both formal (think French parterre) and informal (think English cottage gardens) settings, it can also look terrific in modernist situations.

While I haven’t gone as far as English garden designer John Brookes has and begun an entire garden with a vast sea of gravel from which I carved out planting beds and created islands comprised of large, irregularly shaped stones, I have devoted a section of my own garden to an ample patio made of two foot square concrete pavers that float in an edgeless frame of crushed stone; and I do try to find a place for gravel on most of my residential projects (while gravel is popular for commercial work in Europe, it has not gained the same acceptance here).

Why Gravel Works So Well Here

Gravel Garden Path -2 - R. RuleOne very good reason to use gravel as ground cover in the Pacific Northwest is that it is a perfect sieve. With residential construction at an all time high, there is increased pressure on central storm drains and a movement afoot among municipalities to encourage drainage directly into  individual sites; gravel is a drainage no-brainer.

Most of the problems associated with gravel have to do with ongoing maintenance. First there is the fear of being able to separate fallen leaves and needles from stones. This can be dealt with in two ways, One is to avoid installing gravel where evergreen material is most plentiful, and  the second is simply top raking, which is less time consuming than a lot of garden tasks.

The other big fear with gravel is the potential and inescapable scourge of weeds. Installing a porous filter cloth three or four inches below the crushed stone all but eliminates weeding. Typically, gravel must be contained (I do have places in my own garden where I have not felt this was necessary), and this is usually accomplished by using wooden or metal borders. Simple as that. —Ron Rule

Ron Rule is a well-known residential garden designer in Vancouver. He is the founder and head of the Certificate In Garden Design program at the University of B.C.

Photos: Ron Rule

6 replies
  1. newera 激安
    newera 激安 says:

    兵五万余を借り出すことに成功を見た。その間に、張飛の一身に一奇禍が起った。張飛はその頃、※(「門<(螂-虫-おおざと)」、第3水準1-93-50)中(ろうちゅう)(四川省※(「門<(螂-虫-おおざと)」、第3水準1-93-50)中)にいたが

  2. レイバン rb4105-601
    レイバン rb4105-601 says:

    ぶんのないほど広い。表は金剛への、山街道に面し、裏は深い断層をなした崖下を、千早川が流れていた。――だからそこの書院では、いながらに、金剛、葛城(かつらぎ)、そして峰つづきの水越峠までが、対坐のすがたで、一望に眺められる

  3. オークリー split jacket
    オークリー split jacket says:

    はまつたく『善良』な男の妻となるに不適当だとして罪を宣告されるだらう、男の善良と云ふのは空ツぽな頭と金が沢山にあると云ふに過ぎない。生命と情熱とに充ち、健康で成熟した婦人が自然の要求を否定し自分の最も痛切な欲求を抑制し、

  4. ニューバランス 激安
    ニューバランス 激安 says:

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