The phrase "grew gently" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use this phrase to talk about gradual and subtle developments. For example: "The plant grew gently over time, until it was mature enough to bear fruit."
As our special report in this week's issue argues, their numbers do not grow gently, shadowing economic growth and rising 2%, or 5%, or 10% a year.
Built into rocks, or growing gently out of them, this unpretentious building, awash with sunlight reflected from the ocean and lined with exquisite red African Afzelia wood, is a very special place to eat.
Hamilton himself grew accustomed to the gently purring engines of the luxury Jaguars and Bentleys.
The first, four-mile canter started gently, then grew to an open gallop, the horses kicking up clouds of dust.
The diminutive Lauren Grant was just about ideal as Marie, who grows into a gently parodistic Ginger Rogers to Young Drosselmeier's earnest Fred, with the help of their shared smooches.
At one point, with the Suskind boys grown up, Walter gently explains to his brother how people in love like to kiss.
Instead of acknowledging the heroism of the powerful, the work is said to celebrate the heroism of growing up and gently question the tradition for monuments predicated on military victory or defeat.
— For a glimpse into the complications of President Obama's "all of the above" energy policy, follow a curling mountain road through the aspens and into central Colorado's North Fork Valley, where billboards promote "gently grown" fruits and farmers sell fresh milk and raw honey from pay-what-you-can donation boxes.
The idea has been that raindrops grow as they gently bump into each other and coalesce.
"I think it's important to have a 'soft start' in order to let the school routines and procedures gently grow into the kids," said Johanna Hopia, a classroom teacher at Martti Ahtisaari Elementary School in Kuopio, Finland.
