Is rock gardening for you? If you live in New England, and want a garden, you might not have a choice! The number of rocks you unearth while gardening is likely to be enough to build a house. Just digging holes for new plants yields boulders of all shapes, sizes and colors. You might want to designate an area in your yard where you can store rocks so that when you're ready to use them in your landscape, you'll have an ample supply. There are many different creative ways you can use these rock crops in your yard and garden.
Helpful Tools
- Good solid closed toe shoes such as hiking boots
- a wheelbarrow
- gardening gloves
- very tough shovel
- ice pick
- ratcheting device for large boulders
Creating Borders with Large to Medium Sized Rocks
Rock walls, or straight lines of large to medium sized rocks, are fixtures in New England. You'll see them in forests, in people's yards and even in cities. Rock walls make lovely additions to a garden and are very easy to design. To begin a rock wall or border, dig a long trench (it does not need to be very deep, about six inches) where you'd like the wall to be. If you don't want to do all the digging at once, you can also dig holes for the rocks individually. Bury the smaller rocks under and between the larger rocks. That way when it rains, the large rocks become a fixed part of your landscape. If you don't dig the rocks in, they tend to roll out of your design, sometimes even onto your toes!
Next, begin with a rock that you like, and keep wedging in rocks next to it, careful to secure each rock with dirt and smaller rocks, until you have the look that you want. Fitting rocks together in a nice way is a bit like putting together a puzzle. For the best visual effect, contrast the size, shape and color of the rocks that you use as well as how you put them together. For instance, some rocks look best standing up on one end. Others may look best lying flat or piled together.