Plum Slate Chippings

What Are Plum Slate Chippings? 

Plum slate is born high in the Welsh hills, where seams of Cambrian slate run like dark ribs through the landscape. 

When blocks come out of the quarry, the best slabs head off to become roof tiles. Everything too small, misshapen or irregular is crushed, split along its natural grain and screened. 

The result is a flat, angular chip with a colour palette that moves from heather and aubergine through to smoky grey, shifting as light and rain play across their surface.

The purple tone isn’t a surface dye; it runs right through the stone, so it never washes off or fades. Because every fragment splits differently, a bed of plum slate always looks slightly varied and organic, avoiding the uniformity that sometimes makes dyed gravel look artificial.

Appearance

• Satin Finish When Dry: In sunshine, the chips look softly metallic, almost velvety.
• Inky Richness When Wet: After rain, the colour deepens to a dramatic, near-black plum that sets off foliage and timberwork.

Applications

• Garden Borders and Beds: Clean lines, rich colour, and an easy way to reduce weeding.
• Driveways: Tough enough to handle regular traffic, and the flat shape helps it stay in place.
• Pathways and Walking Areas: Comfortable underfoot and offers a neat finish.
• Pots and Planters: A handful of slate on top of soil helps hold in moisture and gives a clean, tidy look.
• Ground Cover: Great for covering bare soil, cutting down on weeds and locking in moisture.

Benefits 

• Hard-Wearing: Slate shrugs off frost, heat and heavy rainfall without breaking down or leaching colour.
• Flake Geometry: The shards sit like overlapping roof tiles and interlock under foot traffic or tyres, so paths don’t rut and driveways don’t scatter.
• Comfort Underfoot: Unlike rounded gravel, the flat chips move less, making them kinder on shoes, wheelbarrows and prams.
• Weed and Water Management: Laid 40mm or so thick, slate chips starve most weed seeds of light while slowing evaporation, so borders stay damp longer but still drain freely in a downpour.
• Acoustic Damping: Footfalls sound dull and muted - useful around seating areas where the clatter of pea shingle would be intrusive.

Maintenance 

• Leaf litter can be lifted with a light rake or a blower on a low setting (high airflow scatters the chips). Every couple of years, top up with a fresh 10-15mm to replace the small amount that sinks into the soil or travels on shoe soles. 
• If a few weeds do appear, they pull easily because their roots stay shallow under the slate.

Sustainability

Because plum slate chippings use stone that would otherwise be quarry waste, their embodied energy largely comes from crushing and transport, not mining. 

They contain no dyes, resins or cement binders, and at the end of their life, they can be swept up and reused elsewhere or incorporated into hardcore.