Rockery — 140 photos of the main types of a rocky garden and tips on the selection of elements

The device of a stone garden is an ancient Japanese art that has been developing and improving for many centuries. But what is a rockery and what is its device? We know that rockery is a harmonious combination of different shapes, colors and sizes of stones decorated with decorative plants.

Rockeries look very impressive in landscape design, stylishly decorate a garden plot, so their use is becoming more and more popular.

Summary of the article:

Various plants are used, deciduous, as well as conifers, but the use of groundcover plants is minimized.

They are often placed on a flat surface. The purpose of the rockery is to simulate 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 purpose of the rockery, therefore, a minimum of plants are used.
Stones of various sizes, shapes, colors, and textures are used.

Creating a rockery in the country

It is not difficult to make a rockery with your own hands, also caring for it is not difficult, so at present such stone gardens are very popular. You can use almost any corner of your garden to create a rock garden. Suitable terrain with small hills and ravines, as well as flat areas.

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

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

It will be correct to start construction with a plan. First of all, draw a diagram of the future rockery on paper. Choose the types of ornamental plants that you will plant there, arrange the stones on the diagram, determine their size. So you can bypass many mistakes.

When the scheme is ready, choose a place for construction. Choose a flat or slightly hilly area with a circular view. In the future, observation tracks can be laid around the rockery.

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

When the site is selected, you can start preparing the basics. It is necessary to lay drainage. To do this, remove the turf layer, making a small depression in the ground.

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

We fill a layer of soil from a mixture of ordinary earth with humus to the drainage. If you are afraid of weeds and want them not to bother you in the future, you can cover the ground with a special geotextile. The preparation is over.

How to choose the right stones

Choosing the right stones and placing them on the site is an important moment. The rockery is based on stones. It will be right to choose durable, decorative stones while preserving their naturalness.

We select several large stones for the base. When choosing, you need to carefully take into account 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 about a third, pay special attention to strengthening the stones in the ground, tamp the ground around to avoid the formation of voids.

Then do the rockery design – place medium-sized stones around large ones, you can assemble them into groups, place them in close groups or separately. Combine the ways of placing stones, then you will be able to 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 we must remember that a separate breed change your initial presentable exposed to direct sunlight or abundant rainfall, some breeds of pores in the stones can become clogged with dirt.

Some rockeries are made without large blocks of stone, using only a small sprinkling of multicolored rocks.

How to choose the right plants

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

First you need to plant dwarf coniferous trees, remembering their size in adulthood. You can take mountain pine, namely its pillow-shaped or dwarf species, or the same types of spruce.

Some types of junipers are also suitable for this purpose. You can use Chinese juniper, as well as a Cossack or horizontal type of 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 stunted or creeping forms. Suitable bushes of boxwood, lapchatka, Japanese henomeles, some types of dogwood, Japanese spirea, dwarf creeping willow, Alpine rhododendrons.

Perennials are also used in the design. You can plant astilba, iberis, elecampane, wild onions, cereals, hosts, cuffs, 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.

To create beautiful pillows of plants between the stones, you can use groundcover grasses and flowers. The stones can be beautifully braided by the Caucasian rhesus, ochitki, veronica filamentous, cat's paw, phlox awl-shaped, yaskolka.

Some of these plants grow rapidly, which can lead to the fact that they completely cover the stones, so you need to monitor and prune them in time.

Spring bulbous plants, for example, crocuses, stunted tulips, muscari, are an undoubted decoration of any flower garden. 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 the final completion. To do this, you need to pour the empty spaces between the stones with decorative colored crumbs. The construction of the rockery is completed.

Common errors in the construction of rockeries

Don't make a rockery near the walls of the house or along the high solid fence, it will reduce natural effect.
To improve the naturalness, in the background you can make a living fence.
Do not place any tall trees or shrubs near the rockery – the focus of the composition may vary.
Not to plant plants with colorful foliage and flowers. Motley rockery will distract the viewer from the serene calm of the stone garden.
Choosing plants, consider the time of flowering of each species to your flower garden all year looked alive.
Placing stones, browse the composition from different angles. So you avoid the mistakes heaps of stones in one place or on the contrary, their strong fragmentation.
Do not get carried away by the symmetry and severity of the location of the stones. Imagine how would those stones in nature.