How to make a rock garden on a site with your own hands

Recommendation points

• Choosing the right composition
• Stages of preparing the base for a rock garden, laying stones and planting plants
• Rock garden care

A rocky corner in the garden is always unusual, attractive and interesting. Creating a rock garden with your own hands is not as difficult as it seems at the beginning. Show your imagination and create a cozy corner in the country. The tips in this article will help you achieve impressive results.

Choosing the right composition

To equip a recreation area, choose an open area that is at least three meters away from buildings (houses, barns, baths) and planted trees.

The elements of the composition can be arranged in the form of separate groups (plant “cushions” near boulders). Another approach is to create a composition that is subordinate to one idea. For example, plant a seedling unusual in color or crown shape in the center (options: spruce, cypress). Or buy 3-5 boulders of a bizarre shape (in the form of an egg or a circle) and realize your imagination around them.

For arranging a rock garden, both a flat space and a terrain with a height difference are suitable. If your site has different kinds of elevations (terrace, slope), then it is wiser to opt for a composition that imitates rock scree. It is characterized by a contrast between the roughness of the rock, that is, limestone massifs, gravel placers, and the fragility of such plants as saxifrage, edelweiss, aster.

For the part of the garden that is located on a relatively horizontal area, apply the style “alpine lawn”. In strict accordance with the classical approach, for it use plants and minerals inherent in the Mediterranean: anemone, primrose, snow buttercup, crocus and others, which go well with travertine, dolomite, sandstone.

Modern trends in the arrangement of a rock garden allow the use of everything that gets along with each other and is liked by the owners of the site. For rocks, use granite, tuff, shale, and artificially created elements (for example, porous concrete slabs). Plant dwarf mountain pine, spruce, ornamental strawberries, daffodils, tulips.

If you plan to get a blooming carpet on the alpine lawn by mid-summer, plant ayuga, sedum, creeping thyme. Mark the boundaries of the path with Iberis, Gerbil, Erica, Juniper.

For ease of maintenance, provide a path around the rock garden. Decorate it with trample-resistant specimens: creeping thyme or acena. Lush plants look great in compositions: beaver, rhododendron, phlox, cat’s paw.

Landscape designers recommend dwarf conifers and deciduous crops as suitable trees and shrubs. For example, pine, spruce, thuja, elm, fan maple, willow, lilac, jasmine.

When choosing components, avoid variegation. Choose either flowering plants against a background of monochromatic stones, or modest flora planted near interesting minerals.

Stages of preparing the base for a rock garden, laying stones and planting plants

A carefully executed drainage system guarantees the durability of the structure.

The sequence of works is as follows.

1. Remove the sod layer and prepare the pit(which is the most important and time consuming activity). If the soil is light (eg sandy), it is sufficient to remove a layer of turf (20-30 cm), which is set aside. To equip a rock garden on heavy ground, deepen the hole by another 10–20 cm (only 40 cm). While the ground is wet, touch the ground with your hands to remove the ubiquitous roots of weeds.

Apply 3 layers:

• gravel, expanded clay, vermiculite or broken brick (20 cm);
• river (coarse) sand (20 cm);
• earth mixture (10 cm), the recipe for which consists of equal proportions of peeled turf, peat (or rotted foliage) and rubble (gravel, vermiculite or expanded clay).

The exact composition depends on the characteristics of the selected plants..

With regard to a rock garden, a small elevation (20-30 cm) is created on a flat area made of gravel or broken brick. For slopes formed naturally, no backfilling is done.

2. Stacking stones.Install the largest minerals in the designated places (buried in the soil one third of the height, or better – half). Place around a smaller block.

In this way, form several stone islands, tamp the earth around each of them. For work, use a scrap, a shovel, the butt of a log (as a compaction tool).

If you do not plan to plant plants in the voids of the stones, fill them with earth, sand, stone chips. Seal carefully. Carelessness in work will lead to the germination of weeds and the collapse of the composition..

Do not stack minerals on top of each other. To check the solidity of the structure, climb a stone and try to loosen it. If the attempt is unsuccessful, everything is fine..

3. Planting plants.First, decorate with plants the natural grooves in the stones, as well as between them. Then move on to planting plants in the ground. The principle of priority is as follows: from a higher (large) – to a smaller copy.

Be the first to deepen medium-sized specimens, including perennial ones, into the soil. Last but not least – annuals.

Plant seeds in the spring, trees and perennials before winter. For a complete resemblance to the alpine landscape, cover the visible part of the land with a layer of small stones.

Rock garden care

Know that regular maintenance is the secret to the attractiveness of an alpine garden..

You have to do the following types of work.

1. Weeding. This is the most time-consuming process and will be much easier if the fertile layer is well cleaned. Careful selection of weeds in the beginning – a guarantee of excellent appearance later on.

Weeding frequency – at least once every ten days. In a rainy and warm season, adjust the number of approaches according to circumstances.

2. Pruning and planting. To ensure that each of the plants occupies the space allotted to it, control the volume of the green mass. Superfluous – cut (or divide the bush in two). As a rule, replace old bushes with new ones every five years, prune them in spring and autumn..

3. Cleaning: regular and seasonal. Periodically inspect the composition and get rid of plants damaged by drought, diseases, pests.

Look for trees and shrubs as the seasons change. If there are any damaged branches, it’s time to remove them. Cover the wound with garden varnish. If some of the gravel in the area is washed away by rain, restore the appearance of the composition.

For prophylactic purposes, as well as in case of defeat by fungal infections, treat the trunk and central conductors with antiseptics. For example, 3-5% solution of copper sulfate.

Include in autumn work: cleaning the area from wilted flowers, fallen leaves, dried stems and branches.

4. Cover the most valuable specimens for the winter under a special film.

Now you are convinced that with the help of simple work it is easy to equip a rock garden in the country. There is very little left – not to be lazy. Only in this way will a rocky garden become a decoration of a summer cottage.