creamgogo

Would the place you bought them let you bring some back and trade out for some other rock. That way you wouldn't have to replace all the rock, just mix it in. I'm having a real hard time coming up with a plant scheme to soften your "barney rocks", can you give some more info on where it is and what you wanted? A couple of pics of your mistakes would help to understand what you have and where you want to go. Sometimes the shape of a rock is all wrong for the area, I love the look of smooth river rock, but here, there are no rivers with rocks and when we see anything that smooth around here it just looks very wrong. I mean LOL wrong.

Take some pics and really look at them, sometimes its easier to be objective looking at pics. If you can afford $200 -$300 hire a consultant to come see what you have and give a pro opinion how to work with what you have. We did, and it opened up alot of ideas we never would have thought about and solved alot of our drainage problems much easier than how we were going about it. He got such a kick out of our excitement that he ended up not even charging us. I still owe him an apple pie.

Keep trying, nothing is impossible until you're too old to push a wheelburrow, or in my case, too old to tell someone else how to.

I'm having trouble understanding how one can dislike purple rock; we just did a little retaining wall in "Leprechaun" stone which is mostly green but shades to an outright pink, and even if our wall is a bit hokey we love the rock. But if I had seen a good purple option, I might have chosen it instead.

I'm with Aunt Net in wondering if it is something else about the rock, maybe your location or neighbourhood or how you've used the rock, and not the actual colour that is bothering you.

But even if it is the rock, either a better explanation of its shape and use is needed, or a photo! Can't get good help without exposing yourself a litte :-)

i'll post pics when we get a forum "gardening at night and the flash on the camera is broke"!!.......i'm telling you....it's butt-ugly!

actually, i'll get brave here and post some. thanks, you guys!

...barney rock...wait till the hubby gets ahold of that one!!

cream

maybe paint the house bright orange so people don't notice the offending purple rocks?

just a thought ...

:0)

Hmmmmm:
Got the message. But now I'm so curious what they look like that I'm sure my imagination is worse than the rocks really are. Try to take a picture of a couple of them there barney rocks just to get us off your back. Please.

OK, if you put them around plants, put them with trailing lavender ones so they blend in better. Not yellow or red. Next spring try more trailing plants or maybe some evergreen type around the edge that will grow over and hide them.

OOOH Girl, thats alot of money and hard work to try and hide. Wish I had some better suggestions. Might come up with something if I had an idea of type of house or yard. Is it an acreage or city lot? What look are you wanting, casual, formal, cottage ect? How much area are you trying to cover or include? If you go to the Garden Junk they will probably tell you how to paint those rocks, but like most of us they too would wonder, WHY PAINT LAVENDER ROCKS!

They really sound pretty, they just need to be placed differently. It could be that it is just so different than what you have had that it is hard to accept, I've done that with paint in the house. I have to have about a million people tell me that it looks good before I can believe it because I've lived with white walls so long. If you've had a plain yard, barney rocks would be a visual adjustment no matter where you put them.

Just trying to be helpful, or push you over the edge.
(pics please)

Aunt Net

I too am having a hard time with purple rocks being ugly. I just laid 4 tons of Utah Purple Select flagstone in my back yard and love it. I got so many compliments on it I laid some more in the front yard. I"m anxious to see your photos. I agree with the previous posters. Live with awhile and do some planting around them. Otherwise exchange it where you bought the rocks. Van

This could be called teasing, creamgogo!

By the way, you're not the only one this sort of thing happens to - buy it and hate it, that is. I bought a bunch of cobblestones to do a small surface area on my front boulevard (called a hellstrip by some). Upon digging, I found that when the curb had been poured, so much overflow concrete had been left in place that there was not enough depth to use the cobbles. In addition, cobbles have too many cracks for weeds to grow in - not good for this application even where I did have the depth! The darn cobblestones laid around the yard for about a decade before I finally found a way to use them that I liked, and I tried about 40 options before I found it.

Anyway, why not just put three of the rocks on the sidewalk and take a picture of them that doesn't show the whole darn yard? We know you know how to post pictures because you've done it before....

Otherwise, if all you really want is to get rid of it and no one could talk you into liking it anyway, try to return/exchange it, or put an ad in your local classifieds for a U-take-away deal.

How about putting other rocks and plants from the opposite end of the color wheel? Lots of different shades of green and then throw in a few neutrals -that gives the eye a place to "rest".

I'd love to see the pics of purple rocks. down here, we pretty much just have white limestone.