Planting grass, in place of gravel near a building.

Currently pondering some aspects for design of our zone 1 garden and my wife in particular is keen that she can exit / enter as simply as possible. Right now, we have an area right out the door that is 4m x 12m of gravel that hinders you from getting into the garden proper without shoes. That then leads to steps and another path (again gravel) that starts to take you into the 'garden'. I've attached an image of the area.

It is all getting quite weedy as the weed suppressing matting beneath has all but perished and needs replacing. I am wondering about pulling it all up, and replacing it with grass instead. That could be problematic for a number of reasons, but primary concern is the house and the water table; the house is old thick stone walls atop no foundations and the water table is very high (the house sits slightly lower than the river that runs about 30 meters to the south).

I'm thinking to add a french drain / ditch around the house to try and limit impact of moisture in the walls - this step is possibly wise either way as there is some impact with damp inside the house. We have a drain in the gravel too, that actually has a pump attached to a ballcock, engaging automatically whenever the water table gets too high. If that french drain were in place, would grass be a viable option? Would it even help with drinking up a little of the moisture?

Gravels only direct benefit that I can see is time - in as much as freshly laid, it should require little effort. That is not the case right now and it needs replacing anyway. Doing with grasses or other hardy ground covers would offer a yield at least for mulches and compost and enable us to step straight into the garden...

I wonder if anyone has any insight or thoughts about why this is a terrible idea?

I wouldn't do grass as it will quickly invade areas you do not want it and steal the nutrient and water from other plants. Consider doing clover instead, it fixes nitrogen and can be cut and used like grass as a compost resource.

Daniel Ray wrote:I wouldn't do grass as it will quickly invade areas you do not want it and steal the nutrient and water from other plants. Consider doing clover instead, it fixes nitrogen and can be cut and used like grass as a compost resource.

Sounds good - I did think a ground cover of sorts might be better. Really its about being hardy to foot traffic all year round, as limited in maintenance as I can manage and barefoot appropriate. Gravel manages that first one, but in its current state not the second. No chance with the third.

Keep it hard standing of some sort or if you use that door more than a couple of times a month in winter you will quickly wear through any grass and just end up with mud coming straight into the house. If the gravel is an issue for feet, put some paving stones in it so you can walk from stone to stone up to the rest of the garden. To keep it weed free you have to remove all those dead leaves every autumn so they don't turn into soil and then just rake the gravel every couple of weeks and that will stop any seedlings taking hold.

Skandi Rogers wrote:Keep it hard standing of some sort or if you use that door more than a couple of times a month in winter you will quickly wear through any grass and just end up with mud coming straight into the house. If the gravel is an issue for feet, put some paving stones in it so you can walk from stone to stone up to the rest of the garden. To keep it weed free you have to remove all those dead leaves every autumn so they don't turn into soil and then just rake the gravel every couple of weeks and that will stop any seedlings taking hold.

Thanks Skandi. The leaves are an issue for sure and a pig to pick up I must say - trying to rake leaves off of a less than stable substrate in the gravel takes forever and brings alot of the gravel with it. This was part of why I thought grass or something soil based, could be a good idea.

The paving is a good call either way, at least that would solve getting in and out with ease.