Friday, May 6, 2011

Rock Garden Project #1

So we have been researching rock gardens and everyone is different and look nice in any shape or size. The trick is making sure you have a solid base and go from there. It is simple. Dig out an area that you would like to have your rock garden. Dig about 10-12 inches of soil in the area you choose and then place a solid base. It is recommended to use old concrete or bricks or old patio slabs to have as your base. Then put sand over the base layer to help drainage. Then place your large rocks in your garden and position them in any way you like. Once you have the large rocks set in place you put a mixture of the following. 1 part top soil, 1 part peat moss and 1 part pea gravel. This helps with the richness of the soil and drainage. Place the mixture into your garden and level. Place medium and smaller stones in your garden and remember to leave pockets for plants. The purpose of the rock garden is to create one of two things. A beautiful garden with flowers or an arctic type landscape with lots of sun and little water. We decided to do the arctic landscape and that is why we opted for the drainage. Our plants are good in 6+ hours of sun with little water. If you want to change what you are planting then you adjust the pea gravel in the mixture so it will hold more water.

Once you have planted your garden, place wood chips over the garden to give it a nice finished look. We went with a hazel colour for ours. we are also not finished. We love what we have done but will add more curves to the garden and not have such a straight edge to it. We collected our rocks from the beach at Lake Ontario so we did some really heavy lifting but saved some money in the process.

Cheers!!

1 comment:

  1. Very nicely done! Now we have to get working on our back yard!

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