Rock Garden

 When people generally talk about rock gardening, most seem to refer to using small spaces to look like rugged, mountainous landscapes. Requirements are a hillside, or building up a hillside.

Unfortunately, most of us don't have the luxury of large acreage where we can develop what one might call "the traditional rock garden".

Hey guys. Why let that stop you?!

Here's a picture of just one of my rock gardens. Rocks here are made into a feature and it adds interest to the surrounding plants.

This is in a part of the yard that gets lots of sunlight, so the plants I have there draw butterflies and they use the rocks to warm their bodies.

Toads also seem to hang around there, along with chipmunks, rabbits and frogs. And the birds love it, especially the robins. They find the worms to be rather plentiful.

As I write this, we have a large area where we tore down an above ground pool a couple years ago. It was notorious for collecting water. We had a continuous unwanted pond. We put in a dry creek and am making a large rock garden. This is a sandy area, as there was a lot of sand under the pool, so this all seemed natural.

Rock Gardens are high maintenance and weeds are generally a problem.

Plant a variety of species, repeating some species several times to make the Garden look natural. Ideally, rock Garden plants should spread slowly. Take care not to overplant.

Plants that are low growing and have a clumping habit are work best and look best in your rock garden. But it's your garden so experiment.

Dwarf evergreens and ferns give a very nice look to your rock garden.

Rocks native to your area will look natural and will be the cheapest and easiest to obtain. Large rocks with irregular shapes look interesting in the rock garden, but keep in mind that you'll need smaller rocks,

Rock gardening can be fun. It can definitely be a part of your landscape that catches people's eyes. The idea is to create your own masterpiece. It's so simple a caveman can do it.