Gravel Garden in Tuscany

We have already talked about this splendid garden HERE and it is time to focus on plant associations and on the planting design chosen for the creation of some of the gravel gardens present.

It should be emphasized that the photos show the plants about 4 months after planting and therefore we are before the start of the show that this gravel garden will give us over the years.

The design method used for the gravel gardens in this garden is a Mediterranean adaptation of European Matrix Planting, which has been in use for decades. We like to call it Mediterranean Mixed Planting.

It is not enough to be a Garden Designer to develop gardens of this type but you must also and above all be a Planting Designer. The Planting Designer is an almost unknown figure in Italy but very popular in other countries and is the one who, thanks to a deep knowledge of plants, manages to combine them to create incredible scenarios with mechanisms similar to those of nature.

The design of a garden is therefore not limited to the choice of shapes and the distribution of spaces, but explores the infinite possibilities given by the use and distribution of plants.

Each plant in this naturalistic garden has a role, often the protagonist, often exclusively functional but of equal importance. Ground cover plants such as Thymus capitatus or Achillea crithmifolia have been used for their fast growth and ability to quickly cover spaces. Plants such as Poa cita, Perovskia ‘Blue Spire’ or Scabiosa cretica, also known as seasonal theme plants, play a primary role and express the character of the composition. Cistus and other shrubs such as Phillyrea angustifolia instead show the structural element, to be preserved and protected up to maximum growth: it will therefore be the structural plants over the years that will catalyze the gaze and reveal the true volumes of the garden.

The different taxa used in this gravel garden symbolize the numerous transition zones of our Mediterranean environment, often populated simultaneously by different biological forms. And this is how the mixing of woody plants, light and foamy herbs and surprising geophytes creates an environment with obvious references to the natural one, but expertly designed by man and with a single purpose: to evolve to become the best possible version of itself.