An Easy Raised Rock Garden

An easy rock garden project for any landscape area. Rock gardens are becoming more popular every day. This particular garden is a small defined one and can be done in a few hours. Rock gardens can be any size and also can be a raised bed. You can do your entire landscaped area in rock gardens or take an area and do one or more smaller gardens. Read the article on Raised Garden Beds - An Easy Decorative Outdoor Feature For A Small Space Or Porblem Area and get some other ideas for doing a raised bed. There is no set technique for doing rock gardens. Below are some easy steps for you to take when doing this type of project.

• Decide where you want your rock garden and what type of plants to incorporate in the bed.
• We did not use a tiller in this garden as the area wasn't big enough. This garden is about five by five feet. A shovel, pick ax and a mattock were used. Make sure you turn over and work the soil. Rake it out and remove any extra debris.
• Some local nurseries provide their own potting soil. This bed has a scoop, or one yard of potting soil added. If your local garden center doesn't carry their own, you can get regular top soil or bags of potting soil.
• An average ton of top soil takes about 9 wheelbarrow loads. After two or three loads, rake and smooth out the bed. This will make it easier for you when all the potting soil is dumped. Add and mix two bags of mushroom compost into the potting soil. This is also an organic fertilizer for up to one year. This is a great compost for any gardenand most plant specimens love it! After the potting soil is down, take a rake and define the border of the bed by pressing the rake totally around the vertical part of the border. This will give you a a clear and crisp shape.
• Place your pots in the bed and arrange them them so your taller shrub is the focal point. Your smaller shrubs acts as accent plants. A quick reference article to read is Your Garden Project - How To Plant And Place Shrubs And Flowers. This is just an easy reminder on different tips to properly placing your plants in any type of garden.Below are two pictures of this bed. The first is the garden after the potting soil was put in. The second one is a photo of the plants in their pots before planting.

Bed With Potting Soil

Plants In Containers

• Go ahead and plant the shrubs. In this particular garden, an Abelia is the focal point. The Abelia has white flowers in the summer time. In front of the Abelia are two Blue Star Junipers. They are dwarf and also gives the bed a different color in their teal tones. Notice the different textures between the Abelia and the Blue Star. I added four Creeping Rosemary plants. The four plants will spread around the rock garden. Rosemary creates a wonderful aroma and beautiful blue flowers appear in the summertime. This is a favorite plant for many of my clients that do rock gardens. The final plant is Dwarf Mondo Grass. Add six Mondo plants in between the Rosemary. This small bed is easy to do and now full of different texture and color. Take a look at two more photos of the bed completely planted and also with the decorative rocks laid down.

Planted Bed

Complete Rock Garden

• Before you add the decorative stones, place your border of natural rocks around the bed. You can do one layer around the bed or put a few layers. The layers will build up the height of the edging. This will help secure the decorativerocks in your bed.
• Add Your rocks . In this bed we used 6 bags of white stones. The goal was to off set the ground color as there is so much red clay in our geographical area.
• Lay a bale of pine straw or a half of scoop of mulch around the bed to finish off the rock garden. The pine straw or mulch adds a great look against the natural rock border, plants and decorative stones.

These are easy steps to take in creating a raised rock garden. You can make it any size and put a variety of different of plants in the bed. You really can't see it in the pictures but there are two burning bushes behind the rock garden. In a month, the two bushes will produce a vibrant red color to enhance the beauty of this bed. In a few weeks, Pansies will be added for the upcoming winter months. In zone seven, Pansies will keep their color throughout the winter time. They will die out next spring when temperatures warm back up. This raised rock garden can add a special look to any landscape area in your front, side or backyard.