Today, we're going to do some gravel gardening—not merely applying a thin mulch-like top dressing of gravel to a garden bed, but planting right into a deliberate foundation of 4 or 5 inches of gravel. My guest is Jeff Epping, director of horticulture at Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, Wisc., where he created his first gravel garden in 2009. We'll learn what makes gravel gardens so appealing and how to create one, too. 





That first gravel garden at Olbrich Botanical Gardens that Jeff Epping and his team created wasn't the last. There have been three more since, and gravel gardens created elsewhere for clients. Jeff, who lectures regularly to garden audiences around the country about his passion for gravel gardens, even transformed the front yard of his home to one in 2018, and he's here to tell us why and how.