How to Make a Pebble Garden

• Garden Makeover - March 2, 2015
• Nursery Makeover - September 1, 2014

So my gardening skills are not exactly desirable…. since moving from a small apartment to a townhouse with garden beds, I have killed the following plants:  Daisies, coriander (cilatro for my American readers), basil (yes, they said it was a hardy plant, but I took the challenge and was able to destroy it), pansies and a miscellaneous pretty yellow flower which did not live long enough to mention its name to me.

*Cue gardening TV Show theme song music*

Following my plant killing rampage, I decided to set about creating a desert style pebble garden.

You might have seen my back garden makeover post – I was able (with the help of my mum!!) to resurect the back garden, which is now home to flowers and herbs, but despite my many attempts at watering our front garden bed, in the scorching Sydney summer, the poor flowers died a sad death!!

I decided that maintaining two (albeit small!!) gardens was just two hard, and set on a quest to create a Pintrest worthy, super-low maintenance, no green-thumb required pebble garden.

This is how I did it (with the help of my lovely friend Agatha, as seen here, having a tea party with me):

Shopping List:

• 1 roll of Weed mat
• Weed mat pegs
• 3 Agave plants
• 1 yucca plant
• Several pots of Little Red Ruby for hedging
• A LOT of white river pebbles (p.s – however many of these things you think you might need….order more!!  I underestimated how many I needed, ordering 100kg for a small garden bed….I actually needed 1 tonne!!  Unfortunately this ended being quite expensive – I found that Masters Hardware have the best price on the white pebbles for anyone who is looking
• Some packaging foam (“why the foam??” you ask – all will be revealed shortly!!)
• Stepping stones or pavers

The how to:

1. Select your plants (I choose Agaves, a yucca, and some red ruby to use for edging – they are all low maintenance plants which do not require much anything…rain water is generally enough in the cooler seasons, but you can give them a quick water once a week in hot weather).  The Agaves can grow quite large with time, and the yucca plant will grow tall.
2. Map out where you will place your plants and dig deep enough holes in your soil…then..*drum roll,* break up some pieces of your packing foam, and put this in the bottom of your hole.  (“What the….!?”)  This will help the soil to drain better!!  (Thanks to my friend Agatha for this tip!!).  Plant your plants!!  Give them a good watering to help them settle in.
3. Roll out your weed mats (cut holes where your plants are).    You will need scissors to cut the mats to size (they come in a big roll, about a metre wide.  Make sure you cover all the soil where you plan on placing your pebbles.  The weed mat should help deter weeds from growing through in between your pebbles, and will save you lots of work down the track.  Pin the weed mat down with pegs.
4. Place your pavers over the top of the weed mats, rather than cutting the mats around them (I did this so that weeds did not grow between the gaps of the pavers and the mats)
5. Spread your river pebbles down over the top of your weed mats.  You will need a lot of pebbles to cover any gaps (I still need to purchase more as you will see from the gaps in my photos!!!).

and you are done….now you can sit back and not water or weed your super-low maintenance garden!!

Do you have any low-maintenance garden tips you would like to share?  Have you done a garden makeover recently?