Rock Gardening

Rock Gardening

Rock gardening is an easy way to make your lawn and garden beautiful, yet keep it very low maintenance. Rock gardens are particularly useful for areas of your yard which tend to be quite dry, but they’re also quite beautiful in water run off areas too, because you can design them to look like miniature river beds.

Creating a rock garden isn’t too difficult, but there is some planning involved. The first step to planning your rock garden is to select the area which you plan to place it. You’ll also want to decide on the types of plants you’ll have in your rock garden, and what kind of rocks you’d like to have as well.

In most cases, little river rocks and pebbles are excellent to use for a general rock garden bed. You may want to select your rocks and pebbles based on color or uniformity of size and shape, or you might want to simply go out and collect a variety of interesting rocks to put into the garden instead.

The most attractive rock gardens usually have a base rock bed of small pebbles and stones though, and a variety of plants cropping up between them. Then larger, more interesting elements are placed into the rock garden as focal points, shade areas, and to simply make the rock garden more attractive.

Some rock gardens for instance, have a few larger rocks or even small boulders placed in strategic areas to create both interest and variety in the garden. Placing small boulders in your rock garden also makes it easy to add a small fountain or trickling stream too, plus you’ll be able to plant moss and other interesting plants on the boulders themselves close to the water.

Once you’ve chosen the location for your rock garden though, you’ll need to fully clear the area as best as you can. Remove all weeds and as much of the roots from previous weeds and plants as you can, then remove any other unwanted debris. You’ll be left with a fairly mundane dirt lot, but this is the blank canvas you’ll be able to create your beautiful rock garden in.

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Garden Tip...

The spring is the time of the year in which to do the pruning of all kinds of plants, vines, and shrubs, that are out of doors, as they are then dormant. Some prefer to prune grape vines in the fall, just after they have ripened and shed their leaves. We think it unsafe to prune anything too severely in the fall, especially the grape vine. Much experience has taught us to select the month of March as the time of the year most suitable for performing the operation.
~ James Sheehan
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After the garden area has been cleared, you’ll need to place your plants into this area. Unlike other gardens though, a rock garden tends to have small plants that sprout up here and there. So you don’t want to place too many plants, and you don’t want them to be too close together either. Just scatter a few in various areas of the new garden plot.

After you have your plants in the ground, if you plan to place larger boulders in the rock garden, put those in their chosen locations first. Then start spreading your base rock or pebbles. Make the rock layer as thick as you’d like, and be sure to get the rocks in close to the base of your new plants and boulders too. Rock garden plants usually like to climb over, around, and through the rock bed that you create, so don’t be afraid of putting the rocks too close.

Now you simply need to place any finishing touches or focal points into your rock garden. You can place water elements, interesting peices of wood or even old wagon wheels if you’d like.
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Garden Tip...

Probably the most important matter to be observed in growing house-plants is that of watering them. The cultivator should know just when to water, and to give it where it will do the most good. Amateur florists often exhibit much poor judgment in watering. It is the habit of some to keep the soil about their plants constantly soaked with water, and they wonder why they are not thrifty or healthy. These cultivators do not stop to consider that such treatment is unnatural, and will have an effect contrary to what is desired. There are those who resort to the opposite extreme, and keep their plants all the time in a perishing condition of dryness, which is even worse than if they were watered to death. If we will observe how judiciously Nature distributes the sunshine and shadow, the periodical rains, and the refreshing dews, we will learn an important lesson.
~ James Sheehan
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