| Beach pebbles can look great in any garden. Unlike | | | | protective habitat for thousands of creatures for |
| gravel they look smoother and rounded and gentler | | | | over 10,000 years, suffered considerably as a result |
| overall. However, if you decide to place beach | | | | of their thoughtless stupidity. Their illegal action was |
| pebbles in your garden, make sure they are | | | | simply not sustainable. |
| specifically for the garden and from sustainable | | | | While these pebbles and other stones can create a |
| resources, and not from a source that will gradually | | | | wonderful low maintenance garden, and they look so |
| deplete, leaving the area poorer as a result. | | | | good too, it has to be said that to see them placed |
| It may be tempting to simply set off with you car, a | | | | miles from the nearest beach, is not entirely natural. |
| shovel and some sturdy sacks to a nearby beach or | | | | But, if you feel that is the only choice you want to |
| nearby river bed to dig up your own supply of | | | | make, get your stock from sustainable resources. |
| pebbles. It's also likely that you could do this easily as | | | | Coastal erosion is an unfortunate fact of life. The sea |
| there probably won't be anything there to physically | | | | does sometimes eat away coastal stretches, but it |
| stop you. | | | | also creates them. All the pretty stones that can be |
| However, don't! It's very likely that the stones you | | | | seen lying freely on any beach were washed up |
| find lying on a beach are protected by a local | | | | there by the action of the sea, usually in stormy |
| government protection order. Taking them without | | | | conditions. |
| permission will almost certainly lead to the possibility | | | | If stones are removed in quantities that are |
| of you being fined heavily, so it's not worth doing. | | | | manageable for the beach, they will, in time, be |
| Instead, find a good reputable supplier, one that uses | | | | replenished by the actions of the sea. This means |
| a sustainable resources. If your chosen supplier is one | | | | that to some degree beaches can be a sustainable |
| that gets their pebbles wherever they can, and | | | | resource. It's a fine balance though, and removing too |
| doesn't care how depleted beaches get as a result, | | | | many, too quickly will soon create a situation |
| it's time you changed supplier. | | | | whereby the beach cannot recover very easily. |
| An interesting case in point comes from a news item | | | | There's no doubt though that a garden that uses |
| highlighting the problems faced at Chesil Bank in | | | | beach pebbles, perhaps of different colours and |
| Dorset, part of the Jurassic Coast world heritage site. | | | | different sizes, in an original and artistic way can be |
| Following a popular television programme about how | | | | the pride of any street. |
| stones from the beach could really liven up any | | | | There has always been something extremely |
| garden, amateur gardeners started taking stones, | | | | appealing about clean shiny rocks and stones, and |
| rocks and pebbles off the beach at Chesil Bank by | | | | coupled with their low maintenance qualities, they |
| the truck load. | | | | have always been a winner with gardeners. So use |
| The 18-mile stretch of unique pebble-banked beach, | | | | them in your garden by all means, but make sure |
| which had lain intact as a naturally occurring | | | | they come from sustainable resources. |