How to make rockeries with your own hands

Not every summer resident likes to tinker with a garden or a garden. There are owners of suburban areas, and there are many of them who like to spend their free time in the lap of nature, not cultivating it, but enjoying the beauty that is available. They can be advised to arrange rockeries, which can even be done by hand, at their dacha or country plot. However, we must understand that rockeries are not arbitrarily sketched up a pile of stones, it must take a worthy place and play its role in landscape design.

The difference between rock aria and alpine slides

Rockery, like the alpine slide, is a composition created from stones and plants, but there is still a gap between them a number of differences:

• The relief of rock arias does not require an indispensable elevation or slope, it can be equipped in a gentle place.
• A rock garden consists of light-loving plants, while rockeries can be shaded.
• The Alpine hill requires large stones to decorate and support longlines on a hill, rockeries can be of various sizes, up to fine gravel.
• The accent of rock garden - plants, framed by stones, with rock aquarium, on the contrary - the plants emphasize their beauty.
• The presence of conifers of small size is allowed in the design of rock arias, their use in rock gardens is excluded.
• For registration rockery used a wider range of plants, and not only alpine.

Rockaria styles

When planning to make rock ariars with your own hands, you need to first decide which style of design is more appropriate in a particular case. You can create it based on the rules of one of the styles: English, European or Japanese. One way or another it makes the choice of plants, framing stones.

English

A distinctive feature of the English style are the plants chosen in discreet colorsriot and variegation of colors are excluded. Cereal and coniferous plants are the best suited for it. Perennials and evergreens allow you to decorate the landscape with a composition that can exist for many years and even decades, delighting the eye with greenery.

European

European-style rock aria is characterized by planting plants growing in middle lane. These are ordinary plants: flowers, shrubs and conifers. For its design requires a minimum of effort - using local boulders and vegetation, corresponding to climatic conditions and landscape.

Japanese

Japanese style is characterized by the prevalence stone component using rare plant accents. Preference is given to the correct placement of natural stones of various shapes and sizes. Japanese stone gardens are famous all over the world, this is a philosophical concept that has its fans not only among the Japanese.

Good planning

Those who wish to equip such an object should study the information and understand what rockeries are, what style should be preferred, where to place it, what elements to choose for this landscape technique.

Choosing a place to compose

Having decided on the style, you need to choose the right place that meets all the requirements and conditions.

The first step is to study the site: its size, available landscape features and topography.For example, in a small area, the pompous heap of boulders will look somewhat unnatural. And on the contrary, a small cozy oasis is easy to get lost in the vast expanses of the site or under the shadow of spreading trees.

Of the features offered by the landscape, it is better to give preference to ravines, terraces and other irregularities. You can beat them with great imagination, turning it into interesting corners of nature.

If we talk about the cottage, it is unlikely to find a gully, a pond or a terrace on it, usually such areas are a flat surface. In this case, do not be upset - rockeries are good because looks great on any surface. It is necessary to take into account the illumination of the selected area and, if possible, prefer solar because the selection of plants is very limited in the shady area.

It is advisable for beginners to start from a small area, honing the newly acquired skills of a landscape designer, since large areas of non-professionals are often not able to.In addition, care for a small garden is easier than for a large rock aquarium.

It is better to avoid placing rock arias near buildings or fences, but if this cannot be avoided, it is better to curl with climbing plants.

Selection of stones

Filling rockeries, you need to start with stones. They form composition concept. It is advisable to select "related", painted in one color and consisting of one material: granite, sandstone, quartzite, and so on. The composition should look harmonious.

You should not choose the same boulders in size and texture, so rockeries do not look like a bunch of loaded building materials. Each stone has its own place and aesthetic role, well, if it is provided with unique irregularities and differs in size and shape from its neighbors, being, however, in a harmonious combination with them. Identical large stones combined into a composition will have a more advantageous appearance than small ones. It is better to stay on the rubble of sandstone, limestone or granite.

Some practical tips:

• the base should be a two-three large stones, a larger number will cause a feeling of piling up;
• gray granite is easily lost among the greenery, it is better to use stones of several shades;
• the foundation under the largest specimens is recommended to be concreted in order to prevent them from going deeper into the soil;
• There are opposing opinions about stones of different habitats: some designers recommend using the same type of stones, others - to create various combinations without fear of combining, for example, black granite and orange slate. In fact, the truth is in the middle, and the multiplicity of variations can be limited only by the taste of the designer and his preferences.

Plant selection

Having decided on the stones, it is time to move on to choosing the plant component of rock arias. The most commonly used representatives of the flora, conditionally divided into 4 types:

1. Conifer. Mostly dwarf trees. For example, thuja, juniper, spruce and pine.
2. Shrubs. Mostly stunted and compact. For example, cotoneaster, honeysuckle or potentilla.
3. Perennial flowers. For example, a combination of herbaceous (geranium, primrose) and bulbous (narcissus, tulip, crocus, hyacinth).
4. Ground covers. For example, cat's foot or phlox.

First of all, you should take care of evergreen vegetation, in particular, this is important when choosing the English style.

The ephedra should:

• grow small size;
• grow slowly;
• be comfortable to trim.

Designers prefer:

• mini cypresses;
• dwarf tuyam;
• juniper

If you have doubts about whether the shrub will take root, you can use the option with a plant in a tub. Rhododendrons - perennials, often used in the design of rockeries, especially Japanese, where they emphasize the conciseness of the style.

After the shrubs and trees are determined for permanent residence, it's time to start picking flowers. It is important to ensure the effect of continuous flowering: some bloom, others bloom. Flowers for rockeries use a variety of, depending on the concept and environmental conditions, their names and photos can be easily found on thematic resources and in special literature.

Here are some of them:

• crocuses;
• hyacinths;
• tulips are short;
• violet is wild.

When planting, you must follow the sequence: plants that have a well-developed root system are planted earlier, for example, lily or Siberian irises. Next, they are planted with ground cover plants: mosses, sedums, phloxes, saxifrage and others. In addition to the picturesque, they perform quite an applied function to strengthen the upper layer of soil, preventing erosion of the slopes in the springtime.

In the absence of slopes in rock arias, it is recommended to resort to the services of moisture-loving plants: primrose, astilbe.

In flat rockeries, the use of cereals is popular, giving them some refined carelessness.

Step by Step process of creation

Having got hold of stones, seeds and seedlings, you can start building rockeries with your own hands, below is a step by step guide.

By this time, the site and style have already been chosen, in which the stone composition will be solved. It's time to implement a specific project. It is advisable to think over, and better, to draw a schematic arrangement of all the elements: stones and vegetation by grades.

Rockeries are:

• stable - are planned for many years, but there is a danger that they will get bored;
• changeable - always new flowers around a certain group of perennials, there are both constant and variable components;
• temporary - picturesquely located stones among the planted seedlings, as they grow, stones move or are removed.

Will consider step by step instructionshow to make rockeries. First of all, it is worthwhile to acquire patience, since this matter does not tolerate haste, and the mistakes made because of haste entail punishment.

It should start in late autumn, if not managed - in the spring.

• Draw on the ground the boundaries of the future rockeries.
• Remove by 20 centimeters and free the top sod layer from the weed roots.
• Cover the area with non-woven material.
• Lay a layer of drainage: broken brick, crushed stone, pebbles, and compacted with sand, the layer should turn out the height of the same 20 centimeters.
• If you do not take care of the drainage layer, plants that do not like stagnant moisture can be seriously affected.
• Leave the plot alone for a period of 2 months to shrink. After a specified time, you can proceed to further work.
• Set large stones on the sand, which is already quite compacted and ready to take them.

• The remaining space is filled with the substrate in which the plants will be planted. It should not be distinguished by its special fertility, yet in rockery the main thing is stones, and flowers should not overshadow them. However, the substrate must be well permeable to moisture and air.
• At the same time, it is necessary to check and correct the stability of the stones, if they are swaying, it is necessary to reinforce it with soil, rubble or even cement mortar.
• Watering the substrate with water, you need to make sure that it is not washed away, otherwise you will have to redo it. He must soak up the water and stay in the same place.
• After the time necessary for its subsidence, it is possible to start planting plants, depending on the concept and the preconceived scheme.
• First planted conifers, deepening them into the soil through a circle cut through the film. Shrubs follow them, then flowers. Having finished with this, the film must be sprinkled with earth.
• In conclusion, the composition is made with small stones and dumping.

The size of the stones should be related to the size of the plants: the smaller they are, the smaller the rocky appearance.

Stony garden care

Already in early spring, rockeries should be paid attention to:

• remove dry fragments;
• prune shoots of ground covers that have grown in the wrong direction;
• inspect the safety of plants after winter and plant new ones in return for the frozen ones;
• check the strength of occurrence of stones and, if necessary, fix them;
• sow annuals in early May, and plant seedlings in the middle;
• do not overdo it with this case, remembering the dominant role of stones;
• weed and grind the soil;
• start watering after the soil dries to a depth of 7-8 centimeters;
• who needs to be fed, without being too zealous, because plants should not grow;
• regularly remove obsolete: faded flowers, dried stems and the like, as well as cut and thin out;
• in the event of a pest or disease attack, take appropriate action;
• shelter rock arias for the winter can save flowers from freezing, and protect the stones from pollution.

As can be understood from the above, it is not difficult to create rock arias on their own site, everyone is able to do this if there is a desire.

Such a corner will always bring joy, and care it requires a minimum. Depending on mood or changing preferences, you can change its appearance, add something or remove unnecessary, with time it can be expanded if the landscape allows and the concept, which is not difficult to change.

Feeling like a landscape designer, really build and equip a wonderful corner, which will bring joy, peace and aesthetic pleasure.