I don't usually in my flowers, but I do if I am growing root vegetables. Carrots, beets, etc.

I don't think stones will bother flowers. Might make the bed look well groomed though.

I've got so many rocks, I'm going just leave them there and lasagna garden on top! Each year I pick them out, there are 3 x's more next year.

Gotta love Ne Pennsylvania! LC Grace

My husband and I are currently excavating beds for a brand new vegitable garden. Where we are digging, there are six inches of topsoil on top of pure sand and rock. We set the topsoil aside, scoop out the sand and rocks, and replace the soil (and add more). The big rocks are becoming low walls along beds. The sand is becoming the base of what will eventually be a small hill, and I'm using sand and small rocks to build a drainage trench at the end of the driveway.

Even if we could get away with leaving the rocks under the plants, I wouldn't want to. They're too pretty and useful elsewhere!

Here is a link that might be useful: there are pictures here. . .

Usually I work around them, unless they are really big and in my way... then I'll move 'em.

Since my Garden is beside my gravel driveway I usually just toss them over the fence.
Stoloniferous, I checked out your pictures... Your Mom is correct those are iris rhizomes.

Hmmmm, I pick rocks, bricks (whole and in all stages of breakage), chunks of concrete, rusty nails, and lots and lots of broken glass out of my soil. Yes, I've gotten a tetanus booster! I've also found marbles, toy soldiers, money (small change), rusty scissors, window counterweights, pieces of coal, a plastic pocket calendar, whole & broken beer bottles, whole & broken old-fashioned Coca Cola bottles, bottle caps, soda or beer can tabs (the old kind that used to pull off), panty hose, plastic sheeting, and an entire squeegee-type mop. Oh yes, and chunks of drywall and plaster and ceramic tiles, and electrical wire. Also dozens of plant labels, which show that the previous owners tried to garden but were apparently unsuccessful as the plants (including many perennials and shrubs) were nowhere to be seen when I moved in.

I've been doing it for the 7 years I've been gardening at this house, and still find more of this $#!% everytime I dig. Ah, the joys of owning an 80 year old house in the city...

I pick them out when they are in the way. Otherwise, I don't. Rocks (ever so slowly) release the minerals that constitute a large part of what soil is.

I don't pick out everything but I do pick out any decent ones 3" or bigger when I come across them. Ugly ones get used in drainage ditches and pretty ones get used to make flowerbed borders. Anything a foot or more in diameter that has a weird or interesting shape gets used in the beds as focal points or natural garden art. I hate buying materials for borders so even though it's tedious I'd much rather use something that's already plentiful. Like others have said, they seem to work their way to the surface more and more each year so I'll never run out.

Danielle

I remove every rock/stone I see. When I till the garden in the fall, I tie a bag on the tiller and stop for every rock or stone I see. A couple of years ago when I was putting in some horse manure, the loader at the farm dug to deep in the drive and loaded me a lot of rocks and stones in my manure. My garden soil never had any rocks before or just a few by mother nature.

As the OP says, it's neither beneficial nor detrimental to the soil. I think the bottom line is that you remove rocks etc. if it makes gardening easier. It's definitely easier to work with soil that doesn't have a lot of big rocks in it. In my own case, I remove a lot of this stuff simply for my own safety--early on I got some bad cuts & puncture wounds (hence the tetanus booster, and I ALWAYS wear gloves in the garden now) and it's a real nuisance to try to dig and hit a chunk of brick or concrete.

Mxbarbie, thanks for the confirmation on my rhizomes of mistaken identity! :)

Johnnieb, bless you for cleaning up your little corner of D.C.!

I remove them, but I have to because all I seem to have is rocks and clay.

With in the next couple of weeks, I'll be digging a part of my garden area I didn't do last year. And If I remember, I'll take a picture of the rocks that come out of this area.

I have so many rocks, if I don't remove them, nothing will grow.

Crabjoe, if it helps, think of it as an opportunity to make one of those old-style farmer walls. If that doesn't help just keep the aspirin handy.

"Crabjoe, if it helps, think of it as an opportunity to make one of those old-style farmer walls. If that doesn't help just keep the aspirin handy"

That's exactly what I've been using the stone for.... Great minds think alike.

The back of my property line is 145ft. I've now got a stone wall that goes from one end to the other. It's not high yet, but the average hight is now 8 to 10 inches and about 12 to 14 inches deep.

I figure I'll have a good 2ft high wall by the time I'm finished getting all these stones out. Yes, I might not get enough stone for that height, but for now, I've got more rocks then I can handle. In some spots, the rocks seem never ending. No matter how deep I dig, I keep finding rocks.

swing my place sometime, you can take all the stone you want. My soil is on the boarder of two different soil survey zones...

GdC - GLADEVILLE FLAGGY SILTY CLAY LOAM, 5-15 PERCENT SLOPES
Depth to restrictive feature: 6-10" to lithic bedrock.

TbC - TALBOTT SILT LOAM, 2-10 PERCENT SLOPES
Depth to restrictive feature: 20-40" to lithic bedrock.

...I litterally only have about 6-16" of red clay (from decomposed limestone) on top of bedrock. The "rocks" in my yard anywhere from 1/2" slivers of granite like material to the size of small cars, lol.

Every spring, when I'm weeding. The rain seems to work them to the top. This is mainly in my veg bed though. It's helps the root vegetables form consistent roots.

I only remove them when they're in my way. Rocks release stored moisture into the soil. I read once that plant roots love rocks.

Yes I pick rocks out of the garden beds, anywhere from 1 - 8 inches diameter, saving the nice looking ones for garden projects. The rest get tossed on piles here and there.

Also have to dig out many roots, some of them pretty big which are leftover from former large trees. In some areas there are pieces of brick, asphalt, and glass, and the ubiquitous plant tags, but it's not too bad overall.

I've got a funny story about removing rocks.

I grew up gardening in California adobe clay. No rocks. Having rocks in your garden was a sign of severe laziness. I did commercial landscaping and I made sure I picked out every single rock when preparing a lawn seed bed. Grass seed won't sprout on rocks after all, needs to be in contact with soil, and no one wants to step on a rock when they're running across the lawn in bare feet. So, every single rock came out, but that wasn't any work at all as there might only be half a dozen rocks in your average size lawn.

Then I moved to Washington state. Recently glaciated soil. That means glacial till and outwash, and that means ROCKS. Lots of 'em. Gravel, cobble, boulder, hardpan. There's hardly any soil! I liken it to gardening in aquarium gravel. So I was preparing the lawn seed bed in my new house soon after moving here and before I had fully processed the differences in soil types. I raked, and I raked, and I raked, that seed bed, tossing out all the bigger rocks - never mind the gravel. I raked some more. And more. And more. I spent days raking up rocks. The season for seeding lawns was coming to a close and winter was heading my way. I kept raking. The rocks kept coming. Every drag of the rake turned up more. Did I mention we had an abandoned gravel pit on our property? Eventually, my then-husband, no gardener but more accustomed to the local soils, stuck his head out the door. "Honey, how long are you going to keep at that??? The rocks aren't going away!" He was right, and I had to admit defeat. Oh the shame! leaving a lawn seed bed FULL of rocks like that! I would have never left a seed bed like that back in California! but I had no choice here. Adapt, or die!

Anyway, since these same gravelly and rocky soils produce some of the most and best timber in the world, you can see that there's nothing inherently wrong with rocks in the soil. Rocks decompose and release mineral nutrients, and the basic matrix of the soil itself. They provide mechanical stability and increase drainage. Although it is possible to have too much of a good thing - my soil here is described officially as 'excessively well drained'. You cannot keep it damp in summer. Water goes right through it. Oh how I wish for a bit of clay. Although it's nice in the winter when it rains for 60 days straight to have water draining right through your soil without stopping.

But, rocks are bad for root crops, and seed won't sprout on rocks. That lawn always was kinda sparse because of all the rocks on the surface, and more every year. If you only have some, you can remove them as you go. If it's all you've got, well, you just kinda come to terms with it. I do have one little patch I've tried to dig out all the rocks for a veggie garden, I mean about 40 sq ft. Every time I go to plant something new, or till in more compost, I turn up more rocks. Root crops have to go into raised beds filled with imported, screened soil. Washington's famous potatoes and Walla Walla onions do not grow in glacial gravelly till, you can be sure of that. No, this is timber soil here.

Yesterday I planted an artichoke in that little veggie plot. I would say the volume of the soil from the hole was about half rocks of various sizes. I removed I think one or two. Tossed them under the deck. There'd be no soil left if I removed them all. The roots will just grow around them. It does mean less water holding capacity - rocks won't hold water at normal pressures after all but there's nothing I can do about that.

Given how long ago this thread was begun, I don't know if you'll check back, but here goes anyway. I live in a place called Rockland County. (zone 6-7, lower Hudson Valley) It is very aptly named. You can't dig but a few inches without hitting rocks - everywhere. The really small ones, I leave for drainage. But for the most part, I am constantly hauling wheelbarrows full of rocks back to what has become an old fashioned farmer wall at the back of my yard. I have no choice. It's impossible to plant so much as a single flower bulb without removing some sizeable rocks. It's great exercise, though.