I am so glad to find this thread! I absolutely love the look of rocks in flower beds The bed around my gazebo has a stone path that helps keep my girls from trampling the plants as they play night games in the yard. I have also placed rocks of different colors (red, green, black, etc.) and textures (smooth to lava) in my beds to add accents. I just brought a pickup truck full of rocks back from Idaho last week. I got some beautiful green adventurine at a quarry there. They weigh between 50-100 lbs each. I have been working on a new shade bed under the cedars and added a few there. I will try to get some pics and post them. I also plant my hens and chicks (sempervium) in the holes in the lava rocks.

As you can see I am crazy about rocks. Sometimes, I like them better than my plants. They don't need water, do well in any light, don't get pests or diseases, don't die while I am on vacation, and look great in the snow. What's not to love?

I have passed this love on to my girls and I am working on my husband. We not only have rocks in the yard, but have collections of rocks and minerals. We love to go to rock shows and out rockhounding. Is anybody else a rockhound? Like I said, I will try to upload pics but right now it is pouring outside.

Valerie

I definately use rocks in the garden. I use them as bones actually because I figure that is how nature uses them. I want my garden to have more of a "naturally happened" look so the rocks went it first. If you want to see just how insane I was you can take a look at the "Ground Zero" post.

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Bluesun...that's exactly what I have in mind for my pond and patio out back. Right now, it's just two rocks that I dug out of the ground. They're right where they came from. I moved them as far as I could that day.

This winter, I plan to get these two out of the woods. Too many snakes in there for me to go moving rocks right now. Plus, in winter, I won't destroy the hosta and other plants that will have died back for the winter.

The largest of the two in the gully are 4-5' across. That's all I can see of them. They'll form the waterfall for the pond and maybe some seating depending on how I arrange them. The land slopes back there and I need to build up the lower end if I'm going to flatten it out for a patio. I've got broken bricks and chunks of concrete for the level areas.

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You guys have me drooling all over my keyboard.

val1 - You live in Utah, land of incredibly beautiful rocks. A few years ago, we drove across country. We stopped at The Arches and Moab, UT. I'd never seen such beautiful rocks, just laying along the road for anyone to pick up. Lovely shades of green and orange. I brought a few home. Now I wish I'd filled up the truck!

Of course. And some of mine even come with fossils. There's another one out in the garden that has holes instead of the scale-like pattern these three have, but do you think I could find it tonight? I walked around the garden three times, peeking through vegetation and it's no where to be seen. Now, I don't think slugs could pick up a big rock and steal it away.

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Wow--I'm glad I asked!! Such beautiful pictures.....here I am, sitting at my desk at work in a fluorescent-lit library, positively itching to prowl my 30 acres for the perfect rocks and mess around (in a gardening sort of way) in the dirt.

I'd forgotten about the Stone Forum. I used to drool there regularly.

I would be lost without rocks! We garden on property with a number of slopes and rocks sure have come in handy. We were very fortunate that the property we bought was the dumping ground for all the rock that was blasted out to build the road. Here are a few pics from last fall that show how we've dealt with the slopes.

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Same spot in winter
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I used to have my cottage garden beds all lined with small rocks and then peastone paths, but we changed the paths out to slate so the rocks were all removed. Now I have friends come to pick up rocks from the "spare" pile!

-Christine, those are some cool rocks. Any idea what could have made those patterns?

-thyme2dig, I would kill for those rock stairs! Wow! Were they all flat topped to begin with?
CMK

Thyme2dig, your house and property are just beautiful!!

Another rockhound here! I always used to bug DH to stop whenever I saw a likely rock when we were on trips. One one cross-Canada trip we stopped at an amethyst mine near Thunder Bay and even bought a medium size rock. When we were landscaping our first house yard DH built a rock wall with rocks so large only one or two would fit in our small car. In another yard he build stone walls to terrace our back yard which was on a mountain.

In our current yard DH moved rocks with the tractor, some almost filled the bucket. I really don't know how he moved them. We have quite a few as the bedrock was near ground level where they dug the water line so many were split and dug up. I don't have a recent pic of the rockery but there's an old one in my link. This is all being redone as we are enlarging the yard.

Here's a Lady's Mantle at the bottom of the rockery.

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Here is a link that might be useful: rockery in front yard

Token I think those look like some great rocks for your water feature. They have some very interesting coloring and details. Good idea to wait out the snakes. LOL

Schoolhouse how wonderful that you have those fossiled rocks. That makes me so envious. ;-)

Thymetodig you really scored with the rock supply. What an excellent use of them. Your "stairs" are to die for.

Luckygal I don't suppose you have some current photos of your rockery do you? I really like the way you have the rocks worked in very naturally.

Lindakimy I totally agree about the stones making a beautiful contrast to the delicate plantlife. Is that petrified wood in that photo?

Nell tell DH that the bulldozer was a worthwhile investment. Your rocks look fantastic!

Angelclub, granite your native soil.. ROFL- I can so relate to that!

Bluesunflower, I just loaded more pics into my album. However, don't expect too much as I'm photography challenged and my garden still needs a lot of work. I need to take more pics.

Here is a link that might be useful: my photo album

Pam, I am glad you got to see the Moab area. It is so beautiful! We were there in April 2008 and had a wonderful time. I live in northern Utah and drove about 5 hours to get there. Another of our favorite "rock" places is City of Rocks near Almo, Idaho.

The pictures and ideas here are wonderful. I am glad to see there are lots of "rockhounds". It rained all day here so I was unable to get pics of my flower beds. I will try again tomorrow.

Just wanted to share a couple of pics of nature's use of rock.

Arches National Park

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City of Rocks

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Oh my gosh, what a fantastic thread! I love the use and the many different rocks that everyone is using. Wow. It almost leaves one speechless.

DH and I are rock lovers also. We use them all over. When we went to NC a few years ago, he saw one he couldn't bring up for me, from down in a river gorge. Bummer, it would have added to our collection that's for sure. (I am always looking for rocks in the shape of a heart.) He said it was at least 3' across.

FlowerLady

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Oh my gawd. Now I find there's a stone forum. First I started out on the Hosta Forum about 4 years ago. Then discovered a soil forum. Then houseplant. Then perennials. Then this gorgeous Cottage Garden forum, and now stones? I LOVE rocks and stones. But, lordy, I can't stay on this computer all day on all these forums. What are you people doing to me with these great places????
Pat

Yes, we do. I think they're wonderful & gives the area a lived in or old fashioned look. We're talking about using more.

I wish my lupines looked like those in the pics!

Belinda

In the beginning, I suffered from garden envy. Next up was plant envy. Now it's a big hit of rock envy.

We live on the southern Chesapeake Bay - a lovely place with a moderate climate, aside from near constant strong winds. Maritime forest habitat. Only strong plants survive here, and getting them through the first couple of years is a battle.

The only rocks here are riprap installed to keep land from eroding into the Bay. And lots of sand.

I love stones in the garden as well. I use them as stepping stones in some places, and have quite a few fossilized rocks in the Shade garden. Most of them, we have collected outselves. Something about hostas, ferns, rocks, fossils, driftwood . . . it just all seems to fit together so well!

I'm envious of everyone's rocks. We live in Eastern North Carolina and there are *no* rocks. We have to import them. :)

I think we have a new design style. Cottage Rockers! lol!

So many cool rock pics! Thyme2dig, those stone steps are beautiful! So's the landscaping!

Val, great Utah pics! I have many similar pics. We used to vacation in southern Utah - Brian Head. What a great place to mountain bike or just hike. Lovely wildflowers, too.

Bluesun, lol! yeah, there are probably folks who think we have rocks for brains for gardening in this "soil", right ? ; ) I love your big boulder. We have quite a few like it courtesy of the San Andreas fault.

A friend of ours recently finished a pond/waterfall project. There are three ponds with the one at the bottom near his deck being the largest. All the rocks are from his property. He lives about 10 minutes from me. I've been dividing some of my plants for him, hoping the bears don't eat them before he gets them planted. ; )

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The two smaller ponds don't show up in this pic. There is one above the top waterfall and another where you see a gap and the clematis begins. He is so going to have bears using that pond as a jacuzzi. lol
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Rock on!
Diana

All these pictures are wonderful! You could say this one is . . . um . . . low key. :-)

But FlowerLady mentioned heart-shaped rocks, and I photographed this one last week when I noticed it underfoot at the side of my dirt road. When it comes to hearts, I guess you could say every little bit counts.

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I love this thread. It seemed unexpected but it is clear that there is a special group of us "Cottage Rockers".

Did anyone else notice that there appears to actually be a bear in the second photo of Diane's friend's waterfall? I don't know it that is what it is but it isn't there in the first pic of the same spot.
Oh, and by the way, That's a lot of da** rocks! Awesome waterfall.

Flowerlady and Alisande those are great heart rocks. Really special. Sorry you couldn't get that big one in your garden though. :-( Alisande's little one is very sweet.

Luckygal thanks for link, you have a very nice looking home page. Your garden is so pretty and the rocks make a terrific contrast to the plants and blend in so beautifully.

Pat, there is a soil forum?! Oh now you've done it. ;-)

Thanks to this topic, my dh and I are going to move a big rock we have to the new garden today! He bought this huge rock from the rock place, and set it on the patio for extra seating. I told him the rock would look nice in the flowerbed and he got this excited look in his face. lol.

So we are going to try to roll the rock to the front of the house today. Wish us luck!

I LOVE rocks, just think they are perfect in a garden. I've got several, and a pile of big ones waiting for whenever we figure out how to move them.

bluesunflower - Wow! What a massive beast! However did you move that thing? I want one!

Schoolhouse - fantastic details/ fossils. Any idea what they are fossils of? I have some interesting ones and I don't know of a website (or person) that does identification.

Angelcub - truly impressive waterfall. And that's a private residence?! Looks like a fancy schmancy resort. Wish I had hills like that. It's gorgeous!

Nell, your rocks are always so natural looking, like they'd been there for centuries.

Thyme2dig - those stairs are to die for! Many, many generations will get to use those beauties and always wonder who made them. I would have them in my dream garden. Sigh . . .

I'll sort through photos later and post some.

These gardens and the other rock pics are great! Love the rocks embedded in the gardens, the waterfalls, ponds and steps. Just wonderful!

I really love rocks in a garden, too. All of our rocks for the stream, foundation, chimney, walks, etc. had to be hauled in. We have NO rocks.

When our house foundation was dug, not a single rock (not even small) was dug out. A few rocks came up from the driveway building and we rolled all of those to the end of the dry stream to help keep rain from washing out our driveway.

Cameron

fantastic thread - confessed rockaholic here - while I don't have large 'bolders' I do have massive amounts of basketball size right down to gravel and use them extensively in the gardens. All my paths in the woodland gardens are lined with rock. I have several island beds lined with rock and then a scree/rock garden that has my succulents and sedums and low growing heat loving plants. When I do find larger rock I will use them as accent pieces in the gardens. I love ALL your examples of the use of rock in your gardens .......

Lynne

Lining an island bed
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I do. I used to stop at the construction sites, and asked manager's permission to collect whatever rocks they excavated (in liftable sizes) for my beds.
Also, whenever people go out of town or country - I always ask to bring back some rocks (small ones of course) or pebbles. So, there are rocks of all sizes from Italy, France, Israel, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, etc, and many states withing US. I love the idea of having a little bit of energy from around the globe right here in my backyard.

~Natalie

Love rocks! I have to travel a half hour to farmer's fields to find them though ;) This is my double tiered bed along the front of my house... sedums are in the lower tier, shade plants on top.

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Krystine what a pretty color combination you have there!

Gottagarden- how I got the massive beast is a little funny actually. I neighbor knew I was collecting all the rocks and interesting stumps I could find. One day I heard this loud noise of heavy machinery and it was coming down my driveway. He was pushing it with the trackhoe. (like everyone just has a trackhoe hanging around. LOL) Apparently he had run across this one on his property and "thought I could use it".

I was shocked and had no idea what to say or to do with it but I wasn't going to look a gift boulder in the mouth. lol. He stuck it in the middle of the yard and said he'd move it for me when I had a place picked out. So all of a sudden I had a very large boulder in the middle of the yard. Hmmm.. water feature! Never did move it. I guess that goes under the Serendipity post.

christinmk and gottagarden, not sure what first three I posted are, but to me they look as though they could have been prehistoric ferns(?). I'm still looking for the missing one in the garden.

Now, the specimen below I bought for $.50 from a little Amish boy many years ago at a garage sale. I took it to the geology dept. of the local college and this is what he wrote down:

Fossil Honeycomb Coral, Phylum Coelenterata, Order Tabulata, Devonian Period - 400 million years old. A colonial, sea anenome-like organism.

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Bluesunflower..."Is that petrified wood in that photo? "

No, just a rock. I can't remember where that one came from. Most of mine are from my brother in Kentucky (but not that one) or from a trip out west (like Arkansas or Texas maybe) dh and I made several year ago. There just aren't any around here unless the highway department brings them in to keep our dirt road from washing away.

Hey...I'll liberate those, too!

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That is from way back in early spring. Wish you could see that now...LOTS more plant stuff going on!

I line my beds with whatever I can find- big rocks, little rocks, 2x4s...it all works. Here's a couple shots. My ancestors (who broke their backs trying to RID our fields of these) are probably rolling over in their graves...

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Just as I remember a time when I never thought I'd be buying DIRT in a bag, I never expected to want bags of ROCKS, either. They come in handy for so many purposes, from holding forced bulbs in place to mulching plants in pots besides being decorative. They never wear out, either. Stones recycle over and over.

Nell

Well...MOST don't wear out. But there are quite a few of the ones my brother hauled down to me from KY that are crumbling into splinters. I haven't even let myself think about what might be in our atmosphere or weather here that would destroy rocks!

The limestone rocks do erode easily, just from water dissolving them. Buffie loves to find a piece of sandstone, and she will chew it. I don't know if she swallows it or not, but her teeth are nice and white, LOL.

I was thinking of the river rock that are in bags at the big box stores. They seem to last longer.

Nell

Thanks Lindkimy, it's a great looking rock none the less. I love your woods by the way. :-)

LOL Nell, "buying dirt in a bag" but hey did you ever think that you'd be paying for poo in a bag too?

Interesting, Nell. It must be something like that but I wonder how they survive back there on my brother's property. He would probably be happy if they would dissolve!

You are absolutely right about most of them, though. I have rocks that have moved with me three times!

Bluesunflower, thanks! Having seen the beautiful forests in Washington state, I am blushing for my scrub oak and slash pines. LOL But thanks, anyway. I really do love the privacy the woods provide even though it means no one sees my flowers without a specific invitation - or a Gardenweb habit.

I love rocks and use them wherever I can in my gardens. I use them for edging and for accents here and there.

We don't have much in the way of rock in my area, so I have to buy it by the pound (very expensive). Sometimes people put it out for the trash and I pick it up.

In my pool yard I use big hunks of blue-green glass (slag?) instead of rock.

Marynj I have been trying to figure out a way to incorporate that sort of glass into my garden. Would you happen to have a picture you could share? I would love to see what you have done with it as it sounds lovely.
LeSan

LeSan---sure, I will try to post some pictures by this weekend. They're basically rough chunks of blue-green glass and I put them here and there on our river stone mulch in front of our pool garden.

I like to use them because they match the water in the pool. (I also use shells and driftwood for a more nautical look).

LeSan---here you go.

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Here's a closeup of some glass rock.

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So much fun to see everyone's rocks in their lovely settings. However, I'm just going to have to try to forget I ever saw that glass rock - I'm a rock hound AND a glass fiend so it will be very difficult. It's incredible.

Beware of the soil forum, I discovered it last year and now have 5 compost bins. I used to think one was good but now I know more is better when it comes to compost.

Marynj thank you for posting those pictures. That is a very pretty piece and it does have a cool watery look to it. I had the same idea of carrying the water impression further into the garden with the glass but just wasn't sure of how to go about it so it would "make sense" to the eye. I think the piece you showed us here looks just like suspended water. I now have to start looking for a source for slag glass. ;-)

Thank you, folks! I'm a glass lover, too. I think I have about ten pieces of that blue-green glass in my pool garden. I only showed two of them in those photos.

LeSan---I think you hit the nail on the head---it's just like suspended water. I like your idea of putting them in the garden. I got mine at a local stone supplier (they sell more expensive rock like alabaster and marble as well, that sculptors use).

Time to get more for my other gardens! LOL

I use rocks to define my 'desert garden'. Here's a pic to share.

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Xuan

Ooohhh, I love all these new rock pics! That glass rock is stunning! And Xuan, your dry garden is really pretty. : )

"Did anyone else notice that there appears to actually be a bear in the second photo of Diane's friend's waterfall? I don't know it that is what it is but it isn't there in the first pic of the same spot.
Oh, and by the way, That's a lot of da** rocks! Awesome waterfall".

Haha! I forgot about that "bear". It's not real. It's a metal form of a bear. It does look real in the pic, though. If you look at the other pic you can see that it's taken at a slightly different angle, just enough to hide the bear. But these are the San Gabriel Mtns. and we do have bears so I'm sure my friend will be having real fur friends visit this winter. : )

DH and I are digging a pond, which seems to be growing in size everyday (is that a guy thing?), as is the rock pile. We've even found wood attached to some of the rock. Very cool.

I'm writing this from work, and on my desk is the current issue of Our House magazine, covering NY, NJ, and PA. Speaking of stones, here's the cover, showing Derek Fell's water garden:

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I wish I could find an online picture of the flower garden around his tool shed. A true Cottage Garden! Absolutely charming. If I could post it, you could identify some of the plants for me......

Susan

Thank you, angelcub!

Xuan, I love your use of color in your desert garden!

I have rock envy. I must leave the computer now, get dressed and go buy rocks.