Want incredible beauty and low maintenance? Try one of these in your backyard
When you conjure up an trope of a gravel garden , it probably is n’t very fun orcolorful . Many mass picture a sea of hot , dry crushed rock , some rough , cragged rocks , and a fistful of bare green , sparsely uprise flora . This trope might be right on the money if we were talk about mountainous alpine rock garden , but the crushed rock gardens that I ’ve help make here at theOlbrich Botanical Gardensare dissimilar . Why would you want to have a gravel garden ? Well , for starters , you get the same beauty as a traditional perennial garden but with 80 per centum less maintenance . These sustainable plant communities , once established , flourish on natural rainfall alone and require no fertiliser or other chemicals to grow . If given a little time to produce and fill in , they will look like to traditionalperennial gardensbut involve far less work .
The crushed rock garden concept is not new , and most keen gardeners might assort it with one of the greatest gardeners of our time : Beth Chatto . Beth converted a crushed rock parking set into a beautiful , drouth - tolerant garden more than 25 yr ago . Her garden in Essex County , England , flourish despite a meager 20 column inch of rainfall each year , inspiring many gardeners over the age — including me . Much like Beth ’s garden , the Olbrich gravel garden are chock - full of tough , lucullan , and colorful plants that turn harmoniously together . The only time you may see crushed rock is when we rationalize the plant back in spring before they come back to living for another season . Some of the greatest things about our garden , beyond their lulu , are their ease of aid and their inherent environmental compatibility with our clime .
The following are the steps we took when instal our gravel gardens . Though you may not need to transition your whole landscape to this concept , you’re able to bug out out small-scale and see for yourself all the advantages these eccentric of garden have . Once you do , you ’ll be tempted to replace your intact front lawn with a gravel garden — which is on the nose what I ’ll be doing at home this leap !
How to create a gravel garden
With a simple plan , you too can establish a landscape that virtually take care of itself .
Step 1:Pick a site
First , select a site that has decorous land drain . Once you have that , you begin by removing any existing herbaceous vegetation , either mechanically or with the aid of a non - selective herbicide like glyphosate . If there are existing trees or shrub , they can be leave in space and incorporated into the gravel garden ; just remove any loose territory , mulch , or other organic issue from around the crowns of the plants .
Step 2:Install an edge
Next , make a self-coloured delimitation or hard edge around the circumference of the garden , if one does n’t already be . Medium size stone , large Boulder , or pavers are often used to make an edge , but the foundation of a construction , a driveway , an subsist sidewalk , or a concrete curb all make good edgers , too . Just be certain that the permanent molding is tall enough to hold the 4 to 5 inches of gravel that will be placed atop the filth . The margin is critical because the crushed rock involve to be hold open at a consistent profoundness throughout the garden , right up to the edge . If it tapers off at the edge , weeds will find their path in .
Step 3:Spread the gravel
Now for the crushed rock , and not just any crushed rock : Washed 1/4- to 3/8 - column inch quartz glass or granite chip crushed rock work best . Every piece of gravel will be comparatively the same size , so if you beat to these specification , it will remain loose and never compact tight ( picture marbles in a jarful ) . We use local gray angulate quartzite or rounded pea crushed rock , but any rock of like size is fine .
If the planting bed is big , it ’s a in force idea to take in bet about every 4 to 5 feet . Make a home run on the bet about 5 in above the dirt line of reasoning so that you could gauge the depth of the crushed rock as you spread it and ensure a consistent deepness of 4 to 5 inches throughout the garden . This is a very important detail because the crushed rock acts as the barrier to weed cum germination . Too recondite , and the plant life perform poorly ; too shallow , and the roots of skunk seedling can reach the soil below and become make in your nice , white gravel garden .
Step 4:Put the plants in
No special tools needed . Because you ’re plant into on the loose gravel , you ’ll only take your hands to dig a hole and put the works in home . Once the gravel is in place , you are quick for the fun part — planting ! Selecting drouth - resistant , mysterious - rooting specie is essential . perennial grow in 3 - 1/2- to 4 - 1/2 - column inch pots are the ideal size because they typically have a root - ball depth of 4 inches ( the same deepness as the crushed rock ) . expectant potted flora can be used , but the root balls have to be reduced to a 4 - column inch depth , so they will be more unmanageable and fourth dimension - have to plant . Smaller pots or plugs can also be used , but they take longer to rootle into the filth , therefore making them more vulnerable to drouth tenseness during the establishment period . plant should be spaced anywhere from 10 to 15 inches on center , count upon their mature sizes . The goal is to cover the crushed rock with vegetation and create a living , interacting community of plants , so tighter - than - common spatial arrangement is best .
When set , be careful not to disgorge any potting mix into the crushed rock , as this may create a possible weed seed bed in the future . ground or organic issue build - up in the crushed rock is our enemy , and we always front to keep that from happening . Maintaining the air travel space between gravel particles makes it hard for pot seedlings to get a foothold . No extra tools are needed for planting , just a sound couplet of gloves to dig through the gravel and put the root ball in office . When setting the plant in the crushed rock , their crowns should be flush or just slightly below the top of the gravel . take away the top column inch or so of filth from the origin balls before planting . In the process of removing that grime , you will also withdraw the legal age of dormant dope seeds that may germinate after planting . You will get most of the seeded player , but not all ; however , the weeds we have pulled in the first two years ( which have n’t been many ) were in the perennials ’ crowns , not in the gravel between plants .
Once the garden is implant , you will have what look like a ocean of gravel with a few dot of green here and there . Even though you see more crushed rock than plants the first season or two , do n’t despair ; that will apace change as the plants grow to maturity . In 2 to 3 year , you will bask a beautiful arras of exuberant , colorful plants , and the gravel will dwell conceal below , doing its Book of Job of controlling your weeds .
Step 5:Get everything established
Establishing your plants is a fleck unlike in a gravel bed than in a conventional perennial bed or border . Maintenance will be much easier in the foresighted run , but getting the garden off to a dependable start is critical to its foresighted - term success . The headstone to a good start is water , body of water , and more water . This seems contrary to the whole gravel garden construct , but that requirement changes as the plants rout in . Once they get through maturity , they will , in round , reach their maximum drought tolerance . Even though the plant species selected for the garden are by nature drouth tolerant , they involve to root deeply into the grease below the gravel to be that agency .
Keep in creative thinker that the only moisture available to the plant ab initio is in the soil the great unwashed that it was planted with ; the environ gravel has short to no water - holding capacity . urine the plants as if they were still in the plastic pots they were ab initio grown in . In the beginning , that may mean daily lacrimation on gay , raging , airy days . As the plants turn and root in , the watering will become less frequent .
The best way to know when it ’s time to water is by monitoring the plants day by day . piss when you see foretoken of stress—most often , off - colored and droop foliage . A good elbow room to make it easy on yourself and your plant is to plant up a irregular irrigation system that can be leave in home for the first time of year . Hoses and impact sprinkler are relatively inexpensive and deserving the investment . We do care to irrigate by hand whenever potential to maintain this valued resource , but when we ca n’t , the sprinkler do a good job of slake our plants ’ thirst .
Step 6:Make a maintenance plan
The proficient part of a gravel garden may be the maintenance , or should I say the want thereof ? In saltation , after enjoying the dried plants , include bloom and ejaculate structures and the associated doll they pull in over the wintertime , we cut back all of the herbaceous plant life . We employ shearing tools of all type to cut everything back to within a twain of inches of the gravel and remove as much constituent issue as humanly potential . Two citizenry working in tandem — one with a roue , and the other with a mechanical blower — do a rattling Book of Job of cleaning up the garden . That ’s it ! Well , you ’ll still commit a few skunk here and there because nothing in aliveness is perfect and criminal maintenance free . There ’s always that occasional blowball seed that blows in and lands in the crown of one of your knockout that has to be pulled , but in the farseeing ladder , you ’ll pass a fraction of your time sustain your gravel garden compared to your traditional perennial bed or border .
Plants
Jeff’s top gravel-garden plants
in general , what makes a gross crushed rock garden plant is simple : low body of water pauperization , tolerance of exceptionally juiceless conditions , and at least three seasons of good looks .
1. Lead plant(Amorpha canescens)
Zones:2–9
Size:2 to 3 invertebrate foot tall and wide
condition : Full sun ; dry to intermediate , well - drained soil
2. Eastern bee balm(Monarda bradburiana)
Zones:5–8
Size:18 to 24 inches marvellous and broad
condition : Full Dominicus to fond shade ; well - drain land
3. ‘Summer Beauty’ ornamental onion
(Allium‘Summer Beauty’ )
Size:12 to 18 in tall and 18 to 24 inches full
4. Prairie dropseed(Sporobolus heterolepis)
Zones:3–9
5. Pale purple coneflower(Echinacea pallida)
Zones:3–10
Size:2 to 3 feet grandiloquent and 12 to 18 in wide
Conditions : Full Dominicus to partial ghost ; dry to intermediate , well - drained dirt
6. ‘The Blues’ little bluestem(Schizachyrium scoparium‘The Blues’)
Size:2 to 4 feet grandiloquent and 18 to 36 inches wide-cut
7. Prairie baby’s breath(Euphorbia corollata)
Size:18 to 30 in marvelous and 18 to 24 inches wide
Care Tip
Why no fertilizer?
Typically , the drought - tolerant species we embed in gravel garden grow in misfortunate , teetotal soils that are crushed in rankness . If grown in fertile soil or fertilized on a regular basis , they grow fast and tend to open up in the shopping center ( typical in rich garden territory ) . Then we have to separate the perennial to get them to look just . Not fertilize lets the plants grow slow and steady , without ever having to divide — which would mess up the gravel garden ’s soil - under - gravel matrix .
Jeff Epping is director of gardening at Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison , Wisconsin .
Photos , except where noted : courtesy of Jeff Epping ; Danielle Sherry
Photo: Danielle Sherry
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It certainly doesn’t look like a sparse rock garden.Although a gravel garden does use pea stone at the core of its design, the plants are unexpectedly varied and lush.Photo: Danielle Sherry
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Spring is the only time that the garden requires work. Cut back the plants early in the season, and haul out the gleanings by hand. Any leftover debris can generally be pushed out of the garden with a leaf blower.
Compelling combinations are easy.‘The Blues’ little bluestem and ‘Summer Beauty’ ornamental onion pair brilliantly with white calamint (Calamintha nepeta, Zones 5–7), yellow ‘Walter Funcke’ yarrow (Achillea millefolium‘Walter Funcke’, Zones 3–9), and purple Tennessee coneflower (Echinacea tennesseenis, Zones 3–10).Photo: Danielle Sherry
