Rockery Features

• Various plants are used, deciduous as well as conifers, but the use of ground cover plants is kept to a minimum.
• Often placed on a flat surface. The purpose of rockeries is to imitate a mountain landscape.
• It does not have a tiered structure.
• It will look spectacular both in sunny areas and in the shade.
• The beauty and tranquility of the stone composition is the main goal of rockeries, therefore, a minimum of plants is used.
• Stones of various sizes, shapes, colors and textures are used.

Creating a rockery in the country

Making rockeries with your own hands is not difficult, and caring for it is not difficult, which is why such stone gardens are currently very popular. You can use almost any corner of your garden to create rockeries. Suitable terrain with small mounds and ravines, as well as flat areas.

The most daring design idea can be implemented even on a small piece of land. It is possible to arrange artificial hills on a flat area by pouring a hill of gravel or stones, and on the hills it is easy to arrange beautiful mountain landscapes.

There are many photos of rockeries, and it will not be difficult for even a novice gardener to stop at one of the styles.

Construction will correctly begin with a plan. First of all, draw a diagram of the future rockery on paper. Select the types of ornamental plants that you will plant there, place the stones on the diagram, decide on their size. This way you can avoid many mistakes.

When the scheme is ready, select a place for construction. Choose a flat or slightly hilly area with all-round visibility. In the future, observation paths can be laid around the rockery.

A rock garden on your site can serve as an independent element or add harmony, successfully fitting into the style of an artificial pond or waterfall.

When the site is selected, you can begin to prepare the base. Drainage needs to be installed. To do this, remove the layer of turf, making a small depression in the ground.

As drainage, you can use expanded clay, gravel, or just a brick broken into a fine fraction. The drainage layer is about 10 cm. We compact it well and fill it with coarse river sand.

On the drainage we fall asleep a layer of soil from a mixture of ordinary earth with humus. If you are afraid of weeds and do not want them to bother you in the future, you can cover the ground with special geotextiles. Preparation is over.

How to choose the right stones

Correctly picking up and placing stones on the site is an important point. The basis of rockeries are stones. It will be right to choose durable, decorative stones while maintaining their naturalness.

We select several large stones for the base. When choosing, you need to carefully consider the natural features — a decorative chip, an unusual color or a bizarre shape. Naturally, stones of the same breed will look, but this is an optional condition — you make the design yourself.

Large foundation stones should be placed on the site, dug in by about a third, pay special attention to strengthening the stones in the ground, compact the ground around to avoid the formation of voids.

Then go design rockeries — place medium-sized stones around large ones, you can collect them in groups, place them in tight groups or scattered one by one. Combine the ways of placing stones, then you can achieve the effect of naturalness.

The rocks that are most often taken to create rockeries are tuff, sandstone, limestone rocks, slate, granite, shell rock, porphyry.

But you need to remember that some rocks can change their original presentable appearance under the influence of direct sunlight or heavy rains, in some rocks the pores on the stones can become clogged with dirt.

Some rockeries are made without large boulders, using only small piles of multi-colored rocks.

How to choose the right plants

The preparatory work is behind and now you can start decorating the rockery with plants. Plants for your rockery can be selected, following its style, or guided by a design idea. When choosing plants, it is important to remember that rockery is a rock garden, and plants only give it life and decorativeness.

First you need to plant dwarf conifers, keeping in mind their size in adulthood. You can take mountain pine, namely its cushion or dwarf species, or the same species of Norway spruce.

Some types of junipers are also suitable for this purpose. You can use Chinese juniper, as well as Cossack or horizontal juniper. If you prefer thuja, then spherical or dwarf species will suit you.

At the second stage, we make a selection and plant shrubs in the ground. Choose undersized or creeping forms. Suitable bushes of boxwood, cinquefoil, Japanese chaenomeles, some types of cotoneaster, Japanese spirea, dwarf creeping willow, alpine rhododendrons.

Perennials are also used in the design. You can plant astilba, iberis, elecampane, wild onions, cereals, hosts, cuff, different types of grains. If you use ferns, then place the part of the rockery where there is a lot of shade, remembering that this is a shade-loving plant.

Ground cover grasses and flowers can be used to create beautiful cushions of plants between stones. Caucasian rezuha, stonecrops, thread-like veronica, cat’s foot, awl-shaped phlox, and scaly can beautifully braid stones.

Some of these plants grow quickly, which can cause them to completely cover the stones, so you need to watch and trim them in time.

The undoubted decoration of any flower garden are spring bulbous plants, for example, crocuses, undersized tulips, muscari. But their flowering period is short, and gardeners try to close the remaining leaves with other plants, in particular, annuals.

After planting the plants, bring the appearance to its final completion. To do this, you need to pour empty spaces between the stones with decorative colored crumbs. The construction of the rockery is completed.

Common mistakes in building rockeries

• Do not arrange rockeries near the wall of the house or along high solid fences, this will reduce the natural effect.
• To increase naturalness, you can make a hedge in the background.
• Do not place tall trees or shrubs near rockeries — the accent of the composition may change.
• Do not plant plants with bright foliage and flowers. A motley rockery will distract the viewer from the pacifying tranquility of the stone garden.
• When choosing plants, do not forget about the flowering time of each species so that your flower garden looks alive all year round.
• When arranging the stones, view the composition from different angles. So you will avoid the mistakes of piling up stones in one place, or vice versa, their strong fragmentation.
• Do not get carried away by the symmetry and severity of the arrangement of stones. Imagine how these stones would be arranged in nature.

Keep it as natural as possible and your rockery will become a wonderful piece of wildlife in your garden!

Photo rockery