Rockeries in landscape design + photo

Building a rockery with your own hands in the country is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. Usually landscape designers deal with these issues, but with some skills, it is quite possible to create a rockery yourself.

How rockeries are used in landscape design, how to create your own rocky garden and what features of this composition should be taken into account first of all – about all this in this article.

What is rockery and why is it needed

Modern landscape designs simply amaze with the variety of artificial structures, the abundance of outlandish plants and their combination. These are alpine slides, and ponds, and fountains, hedges and bizarre shrubs. All this is designed to attract the eyes of others, but The main purpose of landscape compositions is visual aesthetics. The garden should please the eye of the owner of the site and his guests at any time of the year.

So, rock gardens are usually decorated with cultures inherent in the mountain Alps. Whereas in rockeries, you can use any plants that the owner likes more.

For this reason, lush shrubs, too bright flowers or dwarf trees are not used in rockeries. All this can be safely left to rock gardens. For rockeries, saxifrage plants, weaving crops that can wrap around stones, exotic compact bushes that delight with unusual greenery throughout the season are more suitable.

How to make a rockery with your own hands

In order to create rockeries in the country with your own hands, you need to analyze the entire process of building this composition in stages. Of course, it is much easier to seek help from a qualified designer, but this pleasure costs a lot of money. In addition, many summer residents simply enjoy working with the earth and plants, so creating a rockery will give them considerable pleasure.

First of all, rockeries require site preparation. For this composition, the first plot in the garden that comes across will not work. The placement of rockeries should be considered very thoroughly:

1. It is not built in the immediate vicinity of the house.. Firstly, the stone garden should be located against the backdrop of nature, and not a monumental building. And, secondly, rains and snow descending from the roof of the house can damage the structure, wash the soil, contribute to the shrinkage of stones and the death of plants.
2. You should also not place rockeries near large trees., against their background, small compositions risk getting lost. In addition, the foliage from the trees will constantly fill up the stone garden, which will require considerable effort to clean it up.
3. The best option is install rockeries in a well-lit area, arranging the slopes of the structure so that most of it is on the shaded side. It is best if the long slope is oriented to the southwest or southeast.
4. Do not refuse to build a stone garden in a small area. Small, compact rockeries look no worse than spacious stone slopes.. By choosing dwarf plant species for a miniature composition, you can create a unique masterpiece.
5. If the only place where you can install rockeries is a corner near a fence or an outbuilding, you can go for a little trick. Namely – plant weaving plants near the wall of the building, choosing those varieties that have a decorative look throughout the year. Against the background of greenery, rockeries will look advantageous and natural.

The choice of stones for rockeries

Rockeries are different, some use inconspicuous gray stones of approximately the same size, in others the designer plays on contrasts, combining calm background shades with bright splashes of other rocks.

The choice of stones can completely depend on the tastes and preferences of the owner of the garden.. According to the rules, rockeries are divided into three types:

1. English garden. Such a composition involves the use of gray or beige stones with sharp edges, decorative crushed stone powder and a simple geometric shape of the base. Here, most often, perennial coniferous crops are planted: shrubs or dwarf trees. Frequent “guests” of English rockeries are cereals and bulbous crops. They are sometimes combined with saxifrage and weaving plants. The main rule of English rockery is durability. Such a design should please not only the current owners of the site, but also their descendants.
2. European style rockeryFirst of all, it must be comfortable. That is, require a minimum of time and money for maintenance and care. The stones in such compositions, most often, have a rounded shape – these are pebbles or forest boulders. It is allowed to install one or two large minerals with sharp edges, a combination of contrasting shades and various rocks. From plants, Europeans use local crops that are accustomed to climatic features and soil composition, providing lush flowering and bright colors. Caring for such a rockery is quite simple. If you choose the right plants, having thought through the time of their flowering, it remains only to water the rockeries on time.
3. Japanese gardens impress with the predominance of stones over plants. The whole construction here is based on the layout and combination of stones. Greenery is given very little attention, flowers and herbs should not distract attention from the contemplation of the stone composition. Most suitable are saxifrage, weaving grasses, compact bushes. Japanese rockery should cause peace – this is its main purpose.

The stone selection guide comes down to just a few simple recommendations:

• The stones should have an interesting shape – these can be porous stones, cobblestones with spectacular cracks, moss-covered boulders, black stones brought from the forest or collected on the seashore.
• The combination of the color of the stones depends entirely on the wishes of the owner. For people with excellent aesthetic taste, it will not be a problem to effectively arrange minerals of different shades into a single composition. For those who are afraid of mistakes, the best option would be to use stones of the same breed and shade. In this case, you can “play” with the shape and size of the stones.
• Rockeries look best with one or two central large stones. The bulk of the minerals should be approximately the same size (somewhere 35-40 cm long or wide).
• Any stones can be used for construction, the only requirement is that they must be durable in order to withstand moisture, sun and time.
• If very large stones are chosen for rockeries, you will have to take care of special equipment with which they can be delivered to the dacha and installed in the allotted place.

Rockery assembly

A step-by-step instruction for creating a rockery with your own hands looks like this:

1. The site chosen for the structure must be cleared of weeds and other debris.
2. Remove the top layer with a depth of 10-15 cm from the soil. If the soil on the site is depleted, it is better to remove it and replace it with fertile soil or a purchased mixture. In this case, you will have to remove up to 40 cm of land.

   

3. The roots of weeds, shrubs and trees are carefully removed from the soil.
4. The site is covered with geotextiles or plastic wrap. This will prevent the growth of weeds, the penetration of roots, which can move stones and destroy rockeries.
5. Due to the fact that the natural drainage of the soil is disturbed by the film, it is necessary to create an artificial drainage system. A layer of crushed stone, broken brick or slag is poured at the bottom of the excavated recess. All this is sprinkled with coarse-grained river sand.

   

6. Now the soil is poured, the height of this layer depends entirely on the design of the rockery and its project. After laying the soil is very carefully compacted. Ideally, leave rockeries in this state until the next season (better, for the winter), then the earth will settle naturally.
7. According to the plan, stones are installed. Under the largest boulders, it is necessary to pour a cushion of rubble or even cement their base. This will protect against the inevitable subsidence of heavy stones.

   

8. Soil is poured between the stones and tamped a little with his hands.

   

9. Now you can plant plants. They are selected in advance, at the design stage, a location is determined for each of them. It is best to pour the fertilizer necessary for this particular variety, soil or growth accelerator into the hole for a single flower – that is, to make the transplant as comfortable as possible for the flowers.

   

10. The last step is to water the entire rockery.

Tips and Tricks

Each novice gardener during the construction of rockeries may have a number of questions, we will try to answer the most common of them:

• Step-by-step photos, video instructions and tips from “experienced” will be of great help.
• It is not necessary to buy stones for your rockery – they can be found “under your feet.” It will be especially easy for those who live near the sea or fresh water, such stones are not afraid of moisture and have sufficient strength.
• No need to place the stones symmetrically – rockery should look as natural as possible. It is best to start laying from the highest point of the structure, shifting the stone relative to the center with each tier.
• Rockery will look beautiful and well-groomed, in which the gaps between stones and plants are filled with pebbles, decorative gravel or large sawdust. Among other things, this will prevent the growth of weeds.
• For the winter, rockeries are best covered with a film or other material, this will protect both the plants and the structure itself from erosion and destruction.
• The plants chosen for the decoration of the composition should not exceed a height of more than 50 cm. Flowers on long stems, crops with minimal foliage do not look very nice here. Preference should be given to perennials, which have a presentable appearance all season.