To create a rock garden is a very real idea. Some summer residents, not really thinking, plant any plants and flowers they like surrounded by stones of any variety and size. But if you approach the matter thoroughly, familiarize yourself with the art of creating this wonderful garden composition and find out which flowers are more suitable for creating a rock garden, which stones can be used for an alpine hill, the rock garden will be created much more professionally. The creator of the composition has the following task - a man-made slide should look natural, resemble a picturesque site, lost in the mountains. It is better not to use artificial decor when decorating it - the effect of naturalness in this case will disappear, and the composition may look fake.
All the components in rock gardens should form a harmonious combination: stones and plants should combine well in size, color. Groups of stones and individual boulders should be arranged so that the composition looks as artificial as possible.
The best stones for decorating a rock garden
Stones for an alpine hill, first of all, have a decorative function, but different breeds have different degrees of brittleness, different degrees of moisture absorption, therefore it is better to have an idea about some properties of stones in order to make the right choice. The most commonly used alpine slides today are limestone, sandstone and granite. Let us consider in more detail the properties of these stones.
Option # 1 - Granite
This is a dense stone, poorly absorbing moisture. Granite can be of different shades - reddish, greenish, gray and almost black. Working with a dark stone requires taste and experience, otherwise the composition may turn out to be gloomy. Granite has a large weight, it is difficult to process, but in rock gardens such a stone looks very good. This stone affects the acidity of the soil, therefore, in granite rock gardens it is recommended to plant conifers, heather. Granite boulders are large, fragile flowers in their company look especially delicate and elegant (for example, small varietal tulips).
This composition with large granite boulders does not look too bright, but very natural, like a corner created by nature itself
Option # 2 - Sandstone
This stone is most often used to create alpine slides, as possesses excellent decorative qualities. It is a smooth stone with a coarse-grained structure and a rich range of shades. Sandstone can be beige, pinkish, brown, cream, reddish. It is a good basis for planting, forms spectacular combinations with any kind of them. When creating a slide using sandstone, you don’t need to pick up flowers specially, plant everything you like on the slide.
The sandstone is also good because it forms an expressive combination with other stones. For example, in this case, in a water rock garden sandstone and pebbles used to lay the walls of the stream are well combined
Option # 3 - limestone (tuff, dolomite)
Dolomite and tuff are used in the decor of the slides. They pass moisture, air well, contribute to the normalization of the composition of the soil, are optimal when growing high-mountain plants. Over time, lichens, moss begin to grow on the limestone, giving the boulders an even more picturesque look.
Limestone is a soft stone, time makes its lines smoother, and you can process it yourself without effort. The color scheme of limestones is also wide - you can choose stones with an amazing bluish tint, golden, beige. The use of these stones opens up scope for the implementation of creative ideas. Limestone should not be combined with plants that grow in acidic soils. Dolomite - the material is strong and durable, it is white, black, gray and brown. On a hill, a translucent white dolomite looks especially beautiful.
Dolomite is a soft brown-beige shade - a suitable stone to create a composition. Moreover, alpine plants in such a company will feel good
Tuff is beautiful shades - from white to dark pink, easy to process, allows moisture and air to pass through. Good material to create an original beautiful rock garden
Option # 4 - clinker brick
Sometimes clinker bricks are also used to decorate the rock garden, but not of a rectangular shape, but oval or irregular. Bricks are laid out in layers, using shades of different colors. Such a slide looks good if the house is decorated with clinker bricks.
In addition to these stones, you can also use shale rocks, stones that have a layered structure - they look very nice on a hill.
Boulders for rock gardens can be purchased in special stores or picked up on their own, sometimes on the side of the road you can find a suitable specimen for an alpine hill, on pebble beaches, especially with large boulders, you can also find wonderful material. Pebbles on a slide can be of different sizes - place accents using large stones, and zones can be distinguished by small and medium stones.
Clinker brick is an atypical material for creating an alpine hill, but it can be used, especially if it was used to decorate the house and garden buildings
To create an alpine hill, both plants and stones were successfully selected. Small pebbles, slate and limestone are beautifully shaded by conifers, hosts, young plants and flowering plants.
A rock garden can be made up of stones of one or more types. In the second case, the combination should look organically so that the dissimilarity of the stones against one another is not striking, such chaos disperses attention. Large boulders can be slightly buried in the ground, creating the effect of the emergence of rock to the surface.
How to choose the right stones?
If you want to plant bright flowers, it is better to choose a stone of a neutral color - it will play the role of a background. When using not particularly expressive plants, pick up bright stones - against their background, plants will look more expressive, more contrasting.
When piling up stones of different breeds, there is a risk that the slide will turn into a pile of cobblestones, use stones of similar shapes and close colors.
An example of an unsuccessfully created composition - both stones and plants are too chaotic and in large numbers, the emphasis is not placed
In this case, a rock garden with a small pond looks very harmonious - areas with large boulders in the distance, pebbled pond, groups of ferns and hosts form a single whole
A successful rock garden from boulders - plants bloom on the upper and lower terraces, horizontally and vertically between the stones, as a result, the composition looks natural and bright
The height of the slide is also important - stones with sharp corners are more appropriate for a high embankment, and stones with a rounded shape are more suitable for a flat composition.
In the water rock garden, sandstone laid out in layers looks good. The slide on your site should look harmonious, without violating a single style.
