Building Your First Rock Garden

If you have recently decided to build your own backyard rock garden, there are some good tips to keep in mind. You can start by breaking up a large, blank expanse of lawn, or you may want to divide larger areas of flat gardens with a little geographical texture. There may be a natural slope or pile of rocks on your property that you would like to make more visually appealing. These are all great ways to begin your first rock garden.

If the rocks are already there, consider whether you want them all to stay, or if you should add some new ones to the mix. Choose the most interesting rocks to keep and remove the others. Will you be incorporating a fountain, mini-waterfall, or pond in your rock garden? If so, save the removed rocks for those parts of the project. Add or remove soil between the rocks as needed, either to create space for the plants or to expose pretty rock formations. Treat the spaces between rocks as pots for your plants. You can change the soil consistency in different areas to suit the plant you place there.

If you are creating your rock garden from scratch, you should gather different sizes of rock. Have the dirt piled in place and start from yard level and work upward. Let the soil settle for a few days before planting and wait for it to rain to check for proper drainage.

You also need to consider all the elements of shade, sun, depth, and proportion. Consider your locale to determine the type of plants that will weather well in your area. Then, imagine what your garden will look like throughout the year. Intersperse plants that will bloom at different times of the year with plants that have pretty foliage year round. Put taller plants where they will not block the view of shorter ones. You can rearrange the rocks and plants until you get a garden that is ‘picture perfect.’