Hi! My house is about 6 years old. We purchased it a couple years ago. Turns out the builders did the same thing to our yard. We didn't realize that until I had hired someone to rototill a nice big patch of lawn up for us though. He mentioned to us that we might consider building up, rather than digging down, for a garden, due to the sheer number of rocks he hit. That year we didn't listen and started to dig... we soon had enough giant rocks to line flower beds around two trees, the back of our house, and the front. We still have a pile of small stones left over. We got a decent garden that year, but nothing extraordinary. This year, for my birthday, my husband bought 5 cubic yards of compost for me to lay down in all of the flower beds and the garden. We probably put down about 5" or so over the garden, and things are growing like crazy this year! I recommend bringing in dirt, rather than digging down, if your situation is anything like mine. Hope that helps, Jill

It seems there are many choices to work well in the Southwest. Agastache, lavender, salvia, Russian sage, gaillardia in my garden would do well with gravel. Can't those be grown in the SW? To keep the cost down, we had to use locally quarried gravel. At first, the idea of blue "driveway" gravel was unappealing to me. But, now that it's all done and the plants are very happy I wish I had done this from the beginning when we built in 2005. The rock keeps the moisture in the soil far longer than our "regular" mulched beds. I was so sure that my existing Japanese irises and monarda would die after we put the gravel around them. However, the opposite happened. Those plants do as well as any in the other gardens. That iris bloomed before any of the ones in my garden that aren't in gravel. This is the southwest side of the house. If you read the "history" link in my blog post, you'll see how bad this area looked before the make-over. Cameron

Hello from Melbourne, FL. This is my first day on this site. The following is from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Record, Plants & Garden 1961-62 (new series vol. 17 no. 4) The "Sand Gardens" Of Japan ...there are centuries-old "abstract" gardens in Japan in which sand or gravel are used more frequently, because it can be raked in meaningful patterens. In constructing the replica of the Ryoanji Temple Stone Garden at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the gravel problem required a satisfactory solution. Washed gravel cannot satisfactorry be raked into surface patterens. Crushed gravel of uniformly-sized particles can be raked into patterens, but if it is to hold the pattern and at the same time present a satisfactory appearance (texture, light and shadow, etc.), it is necessary to combine two or three sizes of gravel particles. After several experiments, it was found that poultry grit from the North Carolina Granite Corporation, Mt Airy, NC came closet to giving the effect obtained by the Japanese in their Ryoanji Garden in Kyoto. Of the many size combinations we tested, one of the best proved to be: 2 parts "Grower" size 1 part "Turkey" size 1 part "Turkey Finisher" The different sizes were thoroughly mixed, applied evenly over a flat surface, and raked into a the "wavelet" pattern. The mixture can be recommended both for texture and holding quality. The wavelet pattern holds its form for several weeks, depending on the weather. While mixtures with a higher percentage of small grit held the pattern very satisfactory, they were chaclky in appearance and did not resemble the orginal Ryoanji mix. --- Landon H. Winchester, (Assistant Horticulturist, Brooklyn Botanic Garden) I added the following: http://www.ncgranite.com/gritmailer.pdf grower: 3/32 - 3/16 inch (2.3813 - 4.7625 mm) turkey: 5/16 - 7/16 inch (7.9375 - 11.1125 mm) turkey finisher: 7/16 - 5/8 inch (11.1125 - 15-8725 mm) Here is a link that might be useful: Gran-i-grit broucher

I'd skip the fabric.