Turfed out: swap sunburnt grass for a gravel garden with low-maintenance plants that love hot, dry weather

A colourful Mediterranean garden, with plants thriving in sun-baked gravel, is one answer if you're tired of looking at your sunburnt brown lawn.

Garden designers Harriet Farlam and Ben Chandler are gravel garden converts. Their small town garden in Whitstable, Kent, has loved the drought, thanks to the redesign they carried out when they moved from Bethnal Green two years ago.

At 3m x 20m – typical London dimensions – this long, narrow space is full of ideas for anyone wanting a contemporary dry garden.

"We haven’t had to water the plants at all," says Harriet of the light and airy gravelled dining area at the heart of the garden.

"It’s the real hub. It feels open but quite soft at the same time. We have breakfast, lunch and dinner out here whenever possible and it’s a great place for big family gatherings."

OVERGROWN

The garden was completely overgrown when they arrived, with concrete slabs outside the back door – it was very damp and dingy.

They stripped the fences of ivy and painted them black which "immediately made the garden feel much bigger and the colours of the new planting pop against the dark backdrop".

The couple made their own bespoke mix of crushed cockle shells with limestone chippings and laid it 50mm thick directly onto the soil, then made holes in it to plant Mediterranean natives.

Rosemary and artemisia create loose sculptural balls in the gravel while the spiky stegosaurus-like euphorbia myrsinites snakes over the surface.

Pale blue iris ‘Jane Phillips’ makes spiky, structural clumps and creeping thyme in the path doesn’t seem to mind being trampled underfoot around the table, releasing its lovely scent.

BEACH INFLUENCE

"We wanted to make a reference to the crushed oyster shells on the beach in Whitstable," says Harriet, who trained with designer Arne Maynard.

You can get a similar effect using grey limestone aggregate from dust to 10mm (cedstone.co.uk) or Breedon’s wayfarer gravel (breedon-special-aggregates.co.uk).

With self-binding gravels like these there is no need to lay a membrane underneath, because the gravel compacts down and prevents weeds from coming up from below.

Unlike looser pea shingle, they are also firmer to walk on and don’t attract cats. Rainwater filters through naturally so there’s no risk of winter flooding.

Gravel gardens can tend to feel a bit shapeless, especially in winter. But this one works because it has such strong bones – with a central oak boardwalk leading out from the house, sharp furniture and pleached trees providing straight lines to contrast with the loose textures.

LOW MAINTENANCE

It’s also incredibly low-maintenance. The pleached crab apple trees lining the fence may have needed watering every three days in the recent heatwave, but the gravel plants have required no attention.

Best of all, fennel, verbascums, hollyhocks and delicate purple poppy ‘Lauren’s Grape’ seed themselves willingly in the free-draining gravel, so you’ll never need to buy new plants.

If a seedling pops up somewhere inconvenient it’s easily pulled out. It’s certainly less hassle than getting out the lawn mower – or the hose.

Commission Farlam and Chandler for London and Kent projects at farlamandchandler.com

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