I think that's WE's point, Fire. They don't have long term integrity. They will corrode and collapse eventually and you'll just have a pile of stones, which is unlikely to have been sufficiently stabilised by 'weathering' in the meantime, because they are usually built too steep to be self supporting. Where they are used for railway embankments and the like, they are subject to expensive regular maintenance and surveys. Most people don't do that for structures in their gardens, they just assume what is standing now will stand forever.
The OP was asking about much smaller structures - more like garden walls. If it was me, I'd plan to gradually replace them with 'real' walls. In the meantime I'd probably use wire to fix pots or troughs to the top and/or sides and plant up with trailing/climbing/scrambling plants to disguise the gabions. You can transplant the plants to permanent planting 'pockets' in the 'proper' walls, as and when
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
I like the look of well constructed gabion walls, provided they are robust and contain well chosen feature boulders. I would just let visiting bugs and beetles make their home there to add to the diversity in your garden.
In that recent YGMP episode, the designer must have realised that the originally intended plantscape would struggle without any real depth of soil and start to look untidy very quickly. Thus the idea was abandoned for a token sprawl of common ivy!
You could be a bit more creative and consider a feature of vertical planting using something like this:
Thank you. I agree about the token ivy on the vertical wall in the episode of YGMP! My gabions are not very tall - reach about hip height, but they do have a path in front of them, so I can't grow anything up from ground level. However, I think I could hook a few small pots onto the wire and let plants trail down from them. I could also plant some along the edge of the flower bed and allow them to creep over the edges of the gabion. After seeing that monstrosity on TV my gabions don't look too bad at all. I'm going to have boards laid over the top of some of them to make seats, too.
One would hope your gabions will be galvanised, or even plastic covered, so that they have a good life span in prospect. As yours aren't very high, you might like to try putting temporary boarding against the sides of them before placing very loose soil or compost on top of them, to be hosed down to fill all the gaps and provide enough depth for your selected plants. Done efficiently, natural capillary action should then ensure a normal water supply from the ground underneath?
Thank you, Nick. That’s an interesting idea which I will try on one section of gabion. Because the pebbles ate very large, the gaps between them are also big, so I may have problems with soil falling straight to the bottom.
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The OP was asking about much smaller structures - more like garden walls. If it was me, I'd plan to gradually replace them with 'real' walls. In the meantime I'd probably use wire to fix pots or troughs to the top and/or sides and plant up with trailing/climbing/scrambling plants to disguise the gabions. You can transplant the plants to permanent planting 'pockets' in the 'proper' walls, as and when
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
In that recent YGMP episode, the designer must have realised that the originally intended plantscape would struggle without any real depth of soil and start to look untidy very quickly. Thus the idea was abandoned for a token sprawl of common ivy!
You could be a bit more creative and consider a feature of vertical planting using something like this:
Buy Wonderwall vertical planting starter kit: Delivery by Crocus
More ideas here:
18 Smart Vertical Garden Ideas For Small Spaces | Horticulture
Hope this helps!