As a stonemason and landscape designer I have long been opposed to visible gravel. My childhood was shaped by the bluestone where I grew up, and by works like Opus 40, a landscape of cut stone laid dry. The stone should respond and correspond to the landscape. The stone should welcome the rain, and then guide it to where it can continue its right path. The stone should welcome the rain but not be broken by the rain when it freezes.

The use of gravel in landscaping has always struck me as lazy and as a deferral of maintenance. Over a very short time the gravel sinks into the soil, allowing rain to bury it. Leaf litter and dust accumulate in the space between the small stones, and soon seeds sprout there. Gravel landscapes look good briefly, then they necessitate maintenance. In our time, this mostly means the use of poisons to kill the weeds. Too lazy to cut and place the stones with care, too hurried to care about the flow of the rain that falls, we let the rain percolate and then send a chaser of toxins to make sure it does no good.

This morning I am reading John Elder’s Following the Brush and I am reminded of the one time when I do not oppose the use of gravel in landscaping: when the gravel is laid down by people who will maintain it with rake and broom. For them the gravel becomes a daily meditation, an act of love and devotion. An act of care for the place.

When the gravel is a substitute for the work of care, it becomes a sign of that lack of care.

When the gravel is laid down precisely because it makes prolonged care possible, it becomes both the means and the sign of that care, and it is beautiful.