Stones for landscape design — review of popular ideas with natural stone and pebbles (70 photos)

One of the most promising materials for creating a unique landscape design can be safely called natural and decorative stone. Of course, pleasure is not cheap, but the use of direct and publicly available gifts of nature makes us at least a small step closer to its pristine beauty, which means it helps to settle peace and harmony in the soul, which many people lack so much in the crazy pace of modern life.

But how to turn ordinary stones lying around on the site into a real work of art? What kind of landscape design can become a background for your creativity?

In this article you will find answers to these difficult questions, as well as some useful tips that will help you create a truly unique design project.

Summary of the article:

In the landscape business, there have long been many options for using stone to decorate plots. Almost any modern project can not do without a decor of this kind. So, with the help of stones, they make out:

Paths, alleys, entrances to the garage or parking spaces;
Fountains, bumpers and decorative steps;
Fences, fences, gazebos and arches;
Slides, waterfalls, "stone streams";
Walls of the house, summer kitchen and other buildings;
Flower beds

Of course, nothing limits your imagination here; stones can be used not only for decoration or cladding, but also as an independent element (or even the center) of the composition.

So, such projects are usually implemented through the creation of a Japanese garden or a Japanese zone on the site, because it is in the culture of this country that raw stone plays a very important role, and for a garden it is simply necessary.

How to use natural stone in the landscape?

A Japanese garden is a case when you do not need to buy decorative stone or facing tiles, invite a designer. It will be enough to create a collage yourself (suitable photos of stones in landscape design will be found on the Internet), and then put it into practice.

The more naturalness there is in the selected boulders and pebbles, the more canonical the garden will turn out. It is especially worth looking at the stones of irregular, but streamlined shape: the key to your success is the smoothness of lines and the softness of transitions, the absence of sharp corners.

Small pebbles should be soft and light; oval, round or bean-shaped: everything in a Japanese garden speaks of softness and peace.

Another great solution will be the use of natural boulders in any landscape design of landscape type, because the motto here is imitation of nature in any of its manifestations. This means that you don't even need to move boulders from place to place, process them, knocking down sharp corners, clean, split or remove moss and lichen.

All these are traces of natural influence, therefore, for a plot drowned in the greenery and shade of ancient trees, a large century-old stone will be an excellent decorative element, visually complementing the composition and as if transferring the viewer somewhere into the endless ancient and mysterious forests.

For those who like to apply their hand directly to the creation of landscape design, as well as for creative people, there is another way to decorate their plot with unique creations of human imagination – this is the painting of garden stones.

You can create complex patterns, or simply fill boulders with colorful colors, achieving an incredible mix of shades. Special craftsmen will even be able to create a real masterpiece by depicting a landscape or portrait on the flat side of a stone.

For these purposes, it is better to use acrylic paints or spray paints: they are not washed off with water and are erased more slowly than the rest.

To give the drawing a glossy shine and fix the image, you can cover the surface of the stone with a transparent varnish, but usually a drawing with natural scuffs and slightly faded colors is much more pleasing to the eye than a huge boulder glaring in the sun.

Types of stones for landscape design

Conventionally, all the breeds that designers use in their work can be divided into three large groups:

Natural stone

Granite and gneiss. Elegant and aristocratically conservative, they are used for facing gazebos, arches, fountains and buildings. Attractive here is the spread of eye-pleasing shades, which allows you to choose the perfect color solution for almost any landscape model.

Basalt looks interesting in the design of the decorative elements of the composition: the range of shades varies from smoky gray to black and green.

Soft rocks: sandstone, slate, limestone, which are most often used for the decoration of paths, paths, facing garages or sheds. Such a stone in the decor looks neat and does not catch the eye.

The stones, which are clusters of crystals, give the landscape a special chic. These rocks include marble (easy to process, unpretentious in care and giving the opportunity to choose the right color from a huge number of known shades) and porphyry, the color scheme of which is expressed in various shades of red.

Tuff. It is a porous, light stone, similar to a sponge. It absorbs moisture well and seems to be a good example of natural erosion – such an effect is only in the hands of designers.

Artificial stone

Brick. Usually a brick is used because of its cheapness, but even it, with proper use, can become a good addition to the composition. It is usually used when designing paths, small empty open spaces or for decorating curbs.

Much less often used concrete, but due to its strength it is suitable for driveway leading to the garage or Parking spaces.

Phosphorescent stone

The category is very special. In the light, they are no different from other decorative elements and are completely invisible, but at night you will notice a bright glow.

That is why it is worth using it to completely pave the paths or just decorate the curb. Also, glowing stones for the garden and landscape will fit the sides of pools, ponds and fountains.

The functional side of using stone

If we talk about the use of stones in the landscape of the site from a functional point of view, there are several main advantages:

The possibility of zoning the site: the separation of the working area and the recreation area, the creation of places for the privacy of the owners or for the reception of guests;
The possibility of using large boulders as additional decorative "furniture" that fits perfectly into the overall natural landscape composition;
Ability to hide design defects or unwanted objects;
The ability to fill an empty space without using green spaces that require care and attention.