Savvy Landscaping: Landscape Design, Ideas, Photography, and More » Rock Gardens

Royal Botanical Gardens: Rock Garden

Sirena Van Schaik — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:00:36 +0000

This last summer, I was at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton/Burlington, Ontario, Canada. It was my first time to the gardens, surprising since I went to college in that area, and I was pleasantly surprised at how nice it was. None of it, however; was as nice as the Rock Gardens. This was a place that truly inspired my landscaping goals.

I have never been overly fond of rock gardens, I find that many people will fill up a flower bed with a garden stone, throw in one or two shrubs and plants and call it a rock garden. I often found them plain and uninviting, at least the few I had seen, but the rock gardens at the Royal Botanical Gardens brought new definition to the term rock garden and I will be rethinking my whole “dream garden” yet again.

So here are a few pictures of the garden that I thought might inspire you a.

Use existing trees as the focal point to your rock garden.

Don’t feel like everything has to be surrounded by rocks. Use low lying plants for flower beds and don’t shy away from having grassy places for contemplation.

Use natural stone slabs for pathways and decks to draw the rock garden out from the flower beds to the yard.

Don’t be afraid of color.

Natural looking ponds offer variety and depth to a rock garden and can give you more variety of plants to play with.

And I hope you enjoyed my little tour of the Royal Botanical Garden’s rock garden. If you get a chance to go there, I would strongly recommend it for a day trip.

Sirena Van Schaik

Give A Phenomenal Look To Your Garden With River Rock Landscaping

Jennifer — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:04:40 +0000

In Japan many houses have gardens and in each garden there is often a beautiful bridge and a water body. Every garden is beautiful in its own way; however when you use river rock landscaping the impact can be simply phenomenal.

What Is River Rock Landscaping?

This is a great style of landscaping where river rocks are used around tiny garden brooks to give your garden an extremely beautiful and charming natural look. The best impact is achieved when the river rock landscaping is used for bordering manmade free-flowing water bodies. This not only gives an exceptionally natural look, but also adds a rustic quality to it.

As mentioned a little earlier, the river rock landscaping looks best around a flowing water body or a miniature brook and this is what you need to install in your garden before you get the river rocks added to it. This part is the most difficult one of the river rock landscaping as it involves digging a wide and long enough trench for the water body, having a circulation system installed, testing it for proper functioning and at last getting the river rocks added to give it a perfectly natural look.

The River Rock Landscaping Is Fun As It Is Beautiful

Once your brook is running smoothly and you have the water flowing freely as you have planned it, it is time you bring in the river rock landscaping scheme. You could start by acquiring the river rocks from natural environment or if you do not have adequate places from where you could collect such stones, you could look up your local garden store and or on the Internet.

You need to collect a sufficient number of river rocks so you could line your brook and even put a few in the brook for that exceptionally natural look. It is a good idea to collect these stones from different environments because the end product would be unique. The best part with river rock landscaping is that no two gardens can ever be the same with this method. Just as you find in nature, each garden would be a masterpiece of its own class which cannot be comparable with any other.

With time, you could add adequate vegetation around these rocks and your garden would look like a gift from nature instead of a manmade effort to landscape. More than anything else, the river rock landscaping offers total job satisfaction.

Landscaping with Rocks Adds Natural Beauty

Jennifer — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:23:08 +0000

Since the beginning of time, rocks have been a part of the natural landscape. However, it’s only been recently that landscaping with rock designs adds an intriguing dimensional beauty to yards and property. Rocks are becoming an affordable and creative way to make a special statement.

The Abundance Of Stone

There are really no limits to landscaping with rocks. They come in many sizes, shapes and colors. Textures also vary from slate to granite, and this variety is able to bring unique and special accents to any landscape design. For the amount of presence they offer a property, they are relatively inexpensive and easy to obtain. Rocks can be used sparingly with landscaping plans to give a quick peek of color or texture, or they can be used in greater abundance to create a rugged look to the overall scheme.

If you are a new property owner and you’re digging up areas of your lawn as part of your landscape plans, it’s possible you may uncover some interesting rocks. Put them off to the side until you decide how to use the rocks in your landscaping plans. The rocks you find may become the focal points of your entire landscaping project. But if you’re not lucky enough to find the rocks you need, check out your local garden center or a landscaping supply company. There are even artificial rocks that you can purchase online, and some companies will even engrave them with your family name or a phrase of your choice.

Best Ways Of Use

Although rocks are in everyone’s yard, it takes a special touch to place them in an appealing way. Landscaping with rocks involves the basic principle of making the rocks look like they belong there. Don’t just scatter them around, decide on interesting locations and place them in those spots. Try contrasting the hardness of a rock with the softness of your flowers, or use stones as edging to walkways or around the flowerbeds.

To make the rocks appear as if they were always part of your landscape, be sure to bury them slightly. Dig a shallow hole, only a few inches or more, depending on the size of the rock. Place the rock in this indentation and push the dirt back around it. They seem to offer their strength and stability to the life of the plants and shrubs around them when you landscape with rocks in this way.

The Use of Rocks in Your Landscaping

Jennifer — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 15:37:43 +0000

I’ve gotten some great photos of how to use rocks effectively in landscaping that might get some ideas flowing for your next landscaping project. These pictures show how you can easily change your landscape with one nice garden rock, or how you can take up a rock garden project and completely reinvent a part of your landscape:

This one shows how one large, unique rock can add a new layer to your landscape design:

Photo by Kaiser Gouba of Montreal

Alternatively, if you have a LOT of time and resources, you could consider going the route of the Japanese rock garden. Japanese rock gardens often have rocks surrounded by (carefully raked) sand and/or plants. Here’s an exquisite rock garden to give you ideas, this was taken in Kamakura, Japan by Chobi Capeta:

Whether you want to pour your spring into creating a new rock garden, or just take a few minutes to add a nice rock to your yard, rocks can be a great way to enhance the look of a bare landscape.

Do-it-Yourself: An Attractive Rock Garden

Jennifer — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 07:15:18 +0000

One of the most economical ways to enhance the landscape surrounding your home is to build a rock garden. Rock gardens are most often associated with the British Isles, where the climate is rarely accommodating to delicate plants. Rock gardens bring with them the assumption of having very few plants, and those of a very hardy variety, or no plants at all. The arrangement of the rocks in your garden, when properly complemented by attractive plants with coordinating colors, can add to the beauty of the home and provide a low-maintenance landscape feature that should not interfere with your lawn-mowing practices; rather, it will reduce the amount of space that requires mowing.

The first thing to do when starting your rock garden is to carefully look over the proposed site for your garden. You should clear the area of unwanted plants, such as spindly grass varieties and diseased trees and plants. Be sure to dig out the roots as well as the tops, or you may find your rock garden invaded at some later time by an unwanted fern or intrusive perennials.

If you plan to do some planting, make sure you test the soil to determine its level of acidity and its general pH. It is a good idea, even after you have placed your rocks and mapped out where you want to put any plants, to wait a full growing season before you attempt to plant in your rock garden. This will ensure that the soil has settled, and it will give you a chance to make sure that you have got rid of any pesky weeds by hoeing them out, root and all, as soon as they make their appearances above the ground. It is also desirable to mix in such soil enhancements as mulch, compost, and other compounds. If you plan to use plants that like soils with alkali, you should mix in crushed oyster shells or limestone.

After you have improved the soil, then it is time to place your rocks. It is important for aesthetic purposes not to evenly space your rocks, or to choose rocks of the same size and shape. A little variety in the types of rocks used is as desirable as a little variety of plants chosen to place in a more conventional garden. If you wish to have a great deal of plants, then your rocks should be spaced further apart to give more room for the vegetation. If, however, you plan to use plants only sparingly, arrange them closer together, but make sure that you allow some room for plants to grow. Try to make the design look as natural as possible, as it will be more attractive.

When placing the rocks in a garden that is sloped, it is best to start at the low parts of slopes and work up. Try to slope the top of the rock back toward the slope so that water from rain and sprinklers is guided downward. Additionally, try to keep outcroppings from overshadowing rocks and plants below. The goal is to create a feeling of stability. Set each rock so that its widest side serves a base. You can also set a larger rock on top of smaller rocks and then fill in the cracks with soil.

If you are placing the rocks on flat ground, work from the inside toward the outer edges of the garden. If you are planning a circular garden, or a rock garden in some other shape that is surrounded by other landscape features, this can be tricky. Therefore, it is a good idea to mark out which rocks you would like on a map so that you can ensure their proper placement in the garden. It may be necessary, on a flat site, to build up small mounds of dirt in different places to give the rock garden an interesting appearance.

If you plan to use plants in your garden, you should be careful to plant them after everything else is in place, and after you have a chance to make sure the soil is properly settled. Early spring or early autumn are the best times to do any planting, including planting in rock gardens. Make sure you choose plants that are suited for rugged terrain and adapted to your climate. Then, plant them in the spaces you have designated. The end result should be a beautiful garden that requires little upkeep.