How much rock do I need to fill my Gabion Basket?

While there are many great commercial and domestic uses for gabion baskets, most of them involve filling the basket with some type of rock. Whether you are building a rock retaining wall, feature wall, waterfall, outdoor furniture or just a rock wall for landscape purposes, you will need to order some type of rock filling. Gabion Walls Australia have a number of preferred rock suppliers based on location and type of rock. Please contact us for more information.

So, how much rock do you need? They key reason this is important is so the rocks don't begin falling through the aperture (mesh opening) of the basket. Imagine having a delivery of lovely river rock from your local landscape suppliers arrive at your property only to realise they're too small and will tumble out of the basket once they're in...

Here’s everything you need to know to avoid this costly mistake:

How much rock do I need?

The answer to this question will change depending on the size of basket you have. Since rock to fill your gabion is normally ordered in metres per cube (m3), the best way to calculate the rock require is to calculate the total volume of your gabion basket.

Basket Volume (m3) = Basket Length(m) x Basket Height(m) x Basket Depth(m)

Example: Your gabion basket setup is 5m long, 500mm high and 300mm deep.
Answer: 5 * 0.5 * 0.3 = 0.75 m3 of rock

The following table provides a quick reference of basket volume for any 1m long gabion.

Basket Height

Basket Depth

300 mm

500 mm

1000 mm

300 mm (0.3m)

0.9 m3

0.15 m3

0.3 m3

500 mm (0.5m)

0.15 m3

0.25 m3

0.5 m3

800 mm high (0.8m)

0.24 m3

0.4 m3

0.8 m3

1000mm high (1m)

0.3 m3

0.5 m3

1 m3

1500mm high (1.5m)

0.45 m3

0.75 m3

1.5m3

2000mm high (2m)

0.6 m3

1 m3

2 m3

What size rock can I use?

Fair question isn’t it? Imagine getting a few tonnes of rock delivered only to realise the aperture in the basket cross beams are too large and rocks start falling through. The mesh aperture of all baskets supplied at gabionwalls.com.au is 50mm x 50mm.

This means that any rock smaller than 50mm in diameter will fall through the wire mesh. Based on the aperture above, the recommended rock size is a minimum of 70mm stone. Recommended size rock would be 70-150mm

Find out more on why aperture size matters here: Why Your Gabion Mesh Size Matters