Compose Rock, Gravel and Planting Areas as One Landscape

Ground materials are not filler. Gravel defines the areas between planting, a different aggregate marks where people walk, boulders give scale and anchor the composition, and edging holds the boundary between two surfaces so it stays a line.

When rock is spread without those jobs in mind, the result is the gravel lot that gives xeriscape its bad name.

Material tone is chosen against the building and the setting rather than from a sample on its own. Particle size does as much work as color: a fine decomposed granite reads as a surface you walk on, and a coarser rock reads as ground you do not.

Boulders are selected in graduated sizes and set into the grade rather than placed on top of it, so they read as part of the ground.

Where two aggregates meet is where a yard looks either deliberate or unfinished. One continuous edge is what keeps the contrast clean and stops the two fields migrating into each other.

The planting carries the character of the landscape and the ground material defines the space around it. Areas are drawn so planting can reach mature size without the gravel being cut back again and again to make room for it.

Ground material sits on top of a drainage decision. Grade, the path water takes in a storm, and features such as a dry creek bed are worked out first, because a surface that traps water in the wrong place will move, stain, or wash out.

Rock and gravel here are a material decision inside a complete design, chosen alongside the planting and the irrigation. This demonstration presents no standalone rock or gravel supply service, and material is not selected apart from the landscape it sits in.