HEART OF STONE

The natural crunch and colour of gravel paths and landscaping brings harmony to a country garden, while planting through the stones brings a softer style to beds and borders

- CAMILLA PHELPS

For many of us, the crunch of gravel underfoot evokes memories of shingle coastlines and British seaside holidays. In our gardens we might use it to bring a little coastal flavour or simply to cover up a drive. But gravel can take you beyond the beach to a softer, naturalistic landscape.

In Suffolk, just 30 minutes inland from the flat East Anglian coast, award-winning designer Colm Joseph has created a stunning garden in which gravel is the principal hard landscaping material. It's a design choice that brings visual harmony to the space, linking the garden with the rural architecture of the house, planting flowing in and out from the stones.

‘Gravel is a repeating tone and colour through a space, which helps to bring the areas together,’ Colm explains. ‘One thing I'm always aiming for with my gardens is that from first entry to last point you sense the garden has an overall unity and harmony, that it feels like a single place.’

Gravel is also cost-effective and, as long as it’s placed properly, is a permeable material that allows drainage – two important practicalities for any garden project.

When choosing a hard landscaping material for the garden, the key is to look at the existing walls and surfaces. The same approach comes into play for gravel, which Colm uses as a ‘harmoniser’. ‘Quite often I find myself linking the gravel tone to mortar in house walls,’ says Colm. He used Cotswold limestone buff chippings for this garden. “The house is old red brick and the garden walls are a combination of this and sandstone. I looked at all these and chose a gravel with a tone that resonated, while also being visually quiet. Gravel needs to be tonally, visually recessive – subservient to the other materials.’