Our client had visited the raked Temple Gardens in Kyoto, Japan and asked us to incorporate the look as much as possible into the area below.

Moles were a problem in her garden and we did not want dirt to pollute the serenity of the raked gravel. For this reason we laid a galvanized mesh under the gravel.

The project presented two big challenges. The first was selecting and bringing in two new rocks without the help of heavy equipment. In this photo you can see a re-enforced dolly, burdened by a 780lb. rock that six of us managed to take down stairs, a path, over the edging and into position as the central island.

The other big challenge was finding a gravel that had the look and feel of the raked gravels in Kyoto, which are a chalky, limestone grayish white.  After visiting three gravel yards, and gathering numerous five gallon buckets and creating custom mixes, we finally settled on a straight blend of crushed blue/white granite.

Design accents include a rusted steel edging, a Mexican Pebble Border, and LED lights to see the garden at night.