We are subjected to a terrible tyranny in our garden: we are at the mercy of the lawn. Every weekend we wrestle with a serviceable, but noisy mower and an awful, whining, rechargeable trimmer. In our front garden, thanks to the wary urgings of the design expert who helped with that patch, we have gravel. "Much more practical!" she counselled. "Too cold! Too hard!" I countered. She won. Now, several years later, I know I was out of my mind to imagine that we'd be able to quell a lawn that advanced upon us from both front and rear.
The gravel was unsettlingly bare for a year, but soon plants jumped - by way of self-sown seedlings - out of the borders and into the pebbles. And now, during summer, the previously naked stones support a miniature forest of woolly verbascum, teasel and cotton thistle (Onopordum nervosum). Closer to the ground are two species of leathery-leaved hellebores (H. foetidus and H. arg utifolius), white-flowered, grey-leaved dusty miller (Lychnis coronaria), white-flowered musk mallow (Malva moschata), the happy-faced poached egg plant (Limnanthes douglasii), two types of strapleaved, yellow-flowered Sisyrinchium and at least two different euphorbias.
Every single one of the above (and more) has sown itself, without any help from me. Now that's what I call obliging behaviour in a plant. Of course, such an arrangement depends on a certain amount of forbearance: the plant, rather than you, decides where it will place itself. It is an approach to gardening that definitely does not suit the orderly or iron-fisted person. But, even in this seemingly live-and-let-live regime, a bout of strict policing must occur in late spring. The heart must be hardened for a ruthless weeding out of plants that are encroaching too much on others, or that are in entirely the wrong place, or that have become too zealous in the production of offspring. To augment the self-seeders, I have planted various bulbs and ornamental grasses, including the giant oats (Stipa gigantea), a real show-off plant with elegantly-cascading, gold-dipped flower heads that gleam in the sunlight and swing gently with every passing breeze. A dark New Zealand flax (Phormium `Bronze Baby') adds a touch of contrast, as does the low-growing black mondo grass, Ophiopogon planiscapus `Nigrescens', which is slowly spreading across the pale gravel like a family of inky, long-legged spiders. My only regret is that the planting is a little higgledy-piggledy, and some things are too close together. Unfortunately, neither the phormium nor the giant oats has enough room to flaunt its handsome physique.
In our gravelled spot, the soil is poor and very compact (it was once used as a car-parking area). Before anything is planted, the ground must be opened up with a crowbar and a bucket of garden compost added. But little else is needed other than occasional watering while the plant is establishing itself. If you're starting a gravel garden from scratch, you don't need to amend the soil unless it is very dense or damp: in that case dig in some grit and some organic soil conditioner (either homemade compost or proprietary bagged stuff from the garden centre).
Let the plot settle for about a week, and then, if it is still too airy, tread all over it (or use a lawn roller if you have one). Aim for a firm, but not too hard surface. At this point, some gardeners like to cover the soil with a weed-suppressing black mesh, which usually comes in rolls 1.5 metres wide, and costs about £1.20 per metre length. Slice a cross-shape through the mesh, peel back the corners, and place the plant in the resulting square keyhole. Be sure to fold the fabric back around the plant base. (It is worth noting here that weed-suppressing fabrics prevent friendly garden plants from self-sowing, and for that reason, I don't use them.) If you're doing without the mesh, plant directly in the soil, mark small specimens with a bamboo cane and cover the entire area with about five centimetres of gravel.
Plants that thrive in this situation are Mediterranean-type varieties - that is, those with grey or hardened leaves that minimise moisture-loss. Such plants like a lean diet, not a lot of water and plenty of sun. The reflected heat from stones suits them perfectly. Besides the plants I've mentioned above, there are scores of other candidates. Just 10 of these are: California poppy, sedum, lavender, cotton lavender (Santolina), sea kale (Crambe maritima), the smaller varieties of cistus, rock rose (Heliant hemum), Miss Willmott's ghost (Eryngium giganteum), Salvia argentea and Verbena bonariensis.
And here's one last tip: when you cast out the front lawn to supplant it with gravel, lift the sods carefully and pile them in a quiet corner. In about a year they will rot down to make lovely loam. Ideal for homemade potting mixtures and for adding to planting-holes in the gravel garden.
Jane Powers is at jpowers@irish-times.ie