I want to do a rock garden. Any advice? Thanks?

Answer 1

darlene if there are any snakes in ur area dont do it. they love rock gardens.........i got mine removed.

Answer 2

I did this last summer to multiple areas of my yard...Rocks are expensive, ask neighbors, people on construction sites, or anyone else you can think of if they have any unwanted rocks...You would be surprised....One of my newer neighbors bought their house from a Vietnamese lady who had rock gardens all over, the new owner could not wait to get rid of them.

Do not worry about partially burying them, you can usually find rocks with one side flat and the other rounded, so you just put the flat side down. Over time, rocks will sink into the soil...Do not waste time burying them....

I did borrow my neighbors pressure washer, and cleaned all of the dirt of the rocks. This made the rock gardens a lot brighter....Rain does not remove grime and dirt effectively.

If you get some sand stone, I accidentally discovered that the pressure washer will put grooves in the rocks if you are on a higher setting and have the spray shooting as a stream...Since this was a rock I was planning to place in a prominent area, I just kept going in the same direction...So it now looks like a rock from a desert - everybody asks about it...It looks cool.

Consider a waterfall and small pond!!!. These are very easy to do and maintain. I clean it by draining the water....Ran me around $300 to do by my self...

Most landscapers will say to put like rocks together - I wanted color contrasts, so I have red granite next to sandstone next to some green rock ect.

If you have a real shady area of the yard, put a lot of sandstone there, and keep it wet, it will grow moss and look cool.

Benefits I have noticed are that the rock piles have attracted toads, which eat the mosquitos. So my yard seems to have less bugs. I have also had to do much less maintenance in these areas.

Do not let the rocks lay up against your house siding!!

Email me and I can get you some pictures..

Answer 3

I had a friend in the landscaping business who would tell his men to "leave'm lay boys". What he did was dig a shallow depression and dump a truckload of rock, or just dump them down a slope. The men would then roll any precarious stones to the bottom and leave'm lay. This gave a more jumbled, natural un-posed look to the garden. If you you don't have room for a truckload try to anchor your garden with one very large specimen, I have a 7000lb. piece of petrified wood (it grows wild in this part of the Dakotas LOL) in one of my gardens and not much else, very Zen. RScott

Answer 4

when you arrange your rocks make them in odd numbers and burry about 1/3 of the rock under the dirt to make it look more natural, use different size rocks, and looking at pictures online would be a good idea too

Answer 5

We put down a black plastic , [to keep weeds out] then just started collecting rocks, different sizes, different shapes and colors, filled in the cracks with pea gravel,

Answer 6

ohh cool thats awsome, lets see umm well all u have to do is get some rocks and all the way around the garden.

ohh darleen im going to my granma's so i wont be back the rest of the day.

Answer 7

do a bunch of different colors so it looks like an actual garden. try reds and tans and browns. if you are really into it use greens and blacks too!
good luck!

Answer 8

If you need more information, here is:

How To Build a Rock Garden
http://landscaping.about.com/od/rockgardens/ss/rock_gardens.htm

Answer 9

get your lazy ole man off his duff to make you one