A ground covering element adapted for positioning adjacent another ground covering element. The outer contour of the ground covering element forms projections and recesses about its entire periphery, has corner projections which form the vertices of a rectangle and line portions all of which are oblique to the sides of the rectangle connecting the corner projections. At least two of the line portions connecting each of the vertices are of equal length and the remaining line portions have lengths which are integer multiples of the lengths of the at least two line portions of equal length. A plurality of irregular spaced polygons project from the top surface to form raised portions, the majority of the polygons differing in shape from each other. The edges of the raised portions are straight and separated from each other by dummy gaps having widths which vary linearly along the entire length thereof and from the periphery of the ground covering element by marginal dummy gaps. The edge of each raised portion adjacent the periphery of the element substantially follows the contour thereof and has a distance therefrom such that the average distance between the edge of the raised portion adjacent the periphery and the contour is approximately equal to the average width of the dummy gaps between the raised portions. Sand is used to fill the space between the adjacent ground covering elements thereby effectively concealing this space from view.