14/05/2026
Before & After: Chew Valley Garden Transformation ☀️🌿
This garden in Stowey, Chew Valley (North Somerset) presented a common challenge: a sunny, exposed position combined with free-draining ground. With intense sunlight for around 8 hours a day and a gentle slope causing moisture to run off quickly, the lawn struggled to stay hydrated.
As a result, it regularly appeared burnt, patchy and tired, rarely performing well in these conditions.
Lawns are one of the most high-maintenance elements of a garden, requiring frequent mowing throughout the growing season. For anyone seeking a low-maintenance outdoor space, frequently cut lawns are not really the way forward.
The solution here was to remove the lawn and replace it with a permeable gravel garden, designed around plants that thrive in hot, sunny conditions. (More on the planting palette in another post.)
To keep the gravel neatly contained and provide a crisp finish, the area was edged with beautiful limestone cobbles, laid in a circular outline to strengthen the structure of the design.
To reduce w**ds across such a large area, Terram matting was installed beneath the gravel and carefully cut into for planting.
Installation was completed by Gavin from , who beautifully followed the plans, and communicated any problems that needed adjustment to the design (as what usually happens!).
When the black palisades originally specified for the stepping stones were unavailable, the design was adapted using leftover cobbles – we didn’t want to waste such beautiful stone!
The end result is a more resilient, low-maintenance garden, designed to cope with heat and drought while still looking beautiful throughout the summer. And a lot less mowing!
