Rockeries design: design examples

Rockeries design: design examplesRockery in the landscape design of a personal plot is the pride of any summer resident. Having invested a lot of effort, time and money in arranging a rocky garden, undoubtedly, you want it to please the eye, and the plants that are adjacent side by side coexist perfectly without suppressing each other. There are a great many design options for rockeries, here you can familiarize yourself with the best of them.

Options for arranging rockeries in the garden

Example 1. Mini-rockery with a spring.

Rockeries design: design examples

Such a landscape rockery does not require any embankment, as it is arranged on a flat surface. The stones are dug into the ground by 1/3 so that they look natural. In the choice of plants, preference is given to ground cover species, shrubs, low herbaceous perennials.

The device of the spring requires minimal costs: a round plastic container with a diameter of 1 m or less and a depth of 40-50 cm is dug into the ground, a small pump with a sprinkler for the spring is placed inside. From above, the container is covered with a plastic lid with holes for water, the lid is masked with small stones, and plants are planted around. Such a mini-rockery can be placed in any corner of the site.

Composition of plants for mini-rockery with a spring:

Example 2. Rockery in the East Asian style.

Rockeries design: design examples

It settles down on a flat surface. The choice of stones (there are seven of them) for the design of such a rockery is very carefully chosen. The stones in such a garden should be old, mossy or covered with lichens. They are placed singly and in two groups of three so that the impression of a dilapidated mountain massif or a collapsed rock is created. Of great importance is the free space in the foreground, decorated with light pebbles and yellow wood chips. The accent is a stone lantern.

In the choice of plants – the spring dominant – a tree-like peony. It is so self-sufficient that you should not use many accompanying plants in the composition with it.

The composition of plants for rockeries in the East Asian style:

Example 3. Medicinal rockery.

Rockeries design: design examples

It is a terraced rockery with three terraces and two dry masonry retaining walls 90 and 150 cm high, located on an open sunny slope. During the construction of the walls, natural stone is used, which is available in the region.

First, two trenches are dug for the foundation with a depth of about 1/3 of the height of the supposed retaining wall, in this case 30 and 50 cm.Then, large, then smaller stones are laid on a layer of well-tamped gravel, tightly shifting them and filling the gaps on the sides and between the rows of fertile soil substrate. The stones are laid with an offset and a slight inclination towards the slope. Plants are planted as the walls are built, placing them in vertical spaces between the stones, but better after the soil has settled.

As you can see in the photo, medicinal drought-resistant plants are planted in such a landscape rockery:

Rockeries design: design examples
Rockeries design: design examples
Rockeries design: design examples
Rockeries design: design examples

The composition of plants for a medicinal rocky garden:

  • Salvia officinalis
  • Melissa officinalis
  • Lanceolate plantain
  • Yarrow
  • Violet fragrant
  • St. John’s wort perforated
  • Creeping thyme
  • Peppermint
  • Oregano common
  • Calendula officinalis

Example 4. A small rockery from ornamental deciduous plants in partial shade.

Rockeries design: design examples

It is not difficult to arrange it. The stones are medium and small, up to 15 pieces. They should only be slightly buried in the ground, and they will look natural, as if they have been lying here forever.

The assortment of plants is shade-tolerant herbaceous perennials.

The composition of plants for arranging rockeries in partial shade:

  • Iris bearded
  • Wildflower buds
  • Hosta wavy white-bordered
  • Caucasian rezuha
  • White-flower summer
  • Tenacious creeping ‘Atropurpurea’
  • Sheep Fescue

Example 5. Rockery in a romantic style.

Rockeries design: design examples

For the design of this rockery, you do not need a lot of stones, only two, a kind of domed shape, are enough. They are processed by time, do not have sharp edges. Despite the fact that the stones are the accents of the composition, they seem to be buried in flower perennials, without pretending to be a dominant role.

The delicate pink tones of the composition make it light, airy, adjusting to the lyrical mood.

The composition of plants for rockeries in a romantic style:

  • Digitalis purpurea
  • Delphinium cultural
  • Catnip
  • Evening primrose shrub
  • Mack oriental
  • Clove grass
  • Aubrieta deltoid
  • Pontic Chisinau
  • Salvia officinalis
  • Pinnate carnation
  • Purifier woolly
  • Blue fescue

Example 6. Rockery in ethnic (Mexican) style.

Rockeries design: design examples

This exotic rockery can be arranged both on a flat surface and on a gentle slope. The accents in it will be set by peculiar stones-fingers. The range of plants is exotic woody monocots and cacti planted in summer.

Composition of plants for rockeries in ethnic (Mexican) style:

  • Cereus
  • Aloe leaf yucca
  • Disciform prickly pear

Other examples of the design of rocky gardens

Example 7. Spicy rockery – shell.

Rockeries design: design examples

Depending on the ecology of plants, such rockery is divided into three zones: “Mediterranean” dry – for plants that love the sun, warmth and are content with natural precipitation and poor soil; medium – for plants with moderate requirements for watering and fertility; lower wet – for moisture-loving and aquatic plants.

For the device of a spicy rockery shell, you must:

  • Mark out the contour of the spiral using wooden pegs and a cord. Orient the widest part of the spiral to the south. Pull out the earth on the bayonet of the shovel inside the contour, in the widest part make a rounded depression 40 cm deep for the wet zone.
  • Lay out a brick or natural stone border along the edge of the spiral.
  • In the narrowest place, erect a wall, leaving a minimum distance of 80 cm for the spiral curl. A dry zone will be located here. In the middle of the curl, pour a layer of gravel or large crushed stone 40-50 cm thick, on top of it – a layer of a mixture of garden soil and sand. When filling the middle and lower wet areas in this mixture, it is necessary to gradually increase the soil and compost content.
  • Lay out the bottom of the pond or marsh zone with a special film, securing the edges with decoratively placed stones.
  • Plant the plants, providing an area for their growth. If necessary, in the first year of planting, decorate the voids with annual crops with similar environmental requirements.

In addition to meeting the growing conditions, plants for the design of such a rocky garden are selected according to color, height, texture, etc. Such a well-formed composition will not only decorate the site, but also due to its exotic architecture can become a “highlight” and even the center of the plant decoration of the site at the right place for her.

Spicy rockery – the shell should not be too small, at least 3 m in diameter. A spiral of this size can accommodate about 20-30 different types.

Plant composition for spicy rockery – shells:

  • Common calamus
  • River gravilat
  • Medicinal watercress
  • Long-leafed mint
  • Basil purple
  • Schnitt-onion
  • Onion fragrant
  • Calendula officinalis
  • Angular bow
  • Drooping bow
  • Cloves
  • Oregano common
  • Marjoram garden
  • Marigolds (medium-sized varieties)
  • Salvia officinalis
  • Hyssop officinalis
  • Melissa officinalis ‘Aurea’
  • Basil purple
  • Rue
  • Moldovan snake-head
  • Creeping thyme
  • White-felt Dubrovnik
  • Sandy cmin
  • The garden saver
  • Common fennel
  • Lavender
  • Rue
  • Moldovan snake-head

Example 8. Rockery swamp.

Rockeries design: design examples

Boulder stones, dug 1/3 into the ground along the edge of a small reservoir, only complement the beauty of the plants. Among the woody ones there are two dominants: one spring – cherry-leaved plum, the second year-round – Chinese juniper ‘Spartan’. In the reservoir itself, attention is drawn to the “green fountains” of linear arrowhead leaves.

The composition of plants for a rocky bog garden in landscape design:

  • Rowanberry rowanberry
  • Hosta wavy
  • The tenacious creeping
  • Fern
  • Hosta lanceolate
  • Cherry plum
  • Juniper Chinese ‘Spartan’
  • Iris Swamp
  • Kamchatka rhododendron

See what such a rockery looks like in the photo:

Rockeries design: design examples
Rockeries design: design examples
Rockeries design: design examples

Example 9. Mini-rockery with hosts in an open, sunny place.

Rockeries design: design examples

This is a small rockery that can be placed in the partial shade of trees with an openwork crown. Rounded stones act as a background for plants. The dominant is the Siebold host with heart-shaped and gray waxy bloom leaves. In contrast to them are the xiphoid leaves of the bearded iris.

Composition of plants for mini-rockeries with hosts in an open sunny place:

  • Hosta Siebold
  • Iris bearded
  • Rhodiola rosea
  • Veronica long-leaved
  • Periwinkle

Example 10. Mini-rockery in a high bed.

Rockeries design: design examples

To do this, you can use old household items: metal troughs, basins and even chests. Before filling them with a substrate, holes should be drilled in the bottoms for water drainage and lined with plastic wrap, a drainage layer of gravel or expanded clay should be laid on the bottom. If there are no such items on the farm, then you will have to build a special frame, choosing for it a geometric shape that suits the style and design of the site (square, rectangular, triangular, rhombic, etc.). Most often, square high beds are made with an optimal height of 0,7-1 m and sides of 1,2-1,4 m. The walls can be laid out of bricks, neutral or artificial stone, railway sleepers. If space permits, you can make a garden bed in the form of a terrace or several terraces at different levels and place creeping plants on them. First, the site intended for such a bed is dug up and the roots of perennial weeds are removed. With a wall height over 30 cm, the base is concreted. If the walls are laid out with
using a lime mortar, then a hole is left in the base for water drainage.

Unlike troughs and basins, which can be easily moved, mini-rockeries in high beds, made with brick or stone, are stationary, so you can start filling them with substrate after a place has been chosen.

The space inside the finished walls, if there is no free flow of water, is laid out with bricks, cobblestones or medium-sized stones, covered with rubble on top, and then with a standard planting mixture. The flower bed is filled approximately 2 cm below the level of the walls. Before planting the plants, the soil is allowed to settle for several weeks, and the planting mixture is added if necessary. Plants and planting method are the same as for classic rockeries. It is especially important to select creeping plants that can partially cover the walls from the outside. The soil surface is mulched with broken stone, brick or chopped bark.

The big advantage of such mini-rockeries is the kind of comfortable conditions for heat-loving plants. Before planting plants in such a mini-rockery, stones are installed and buried in 1/3 of the depth, the substrate is well watered; when it settles, add soil, which is then repeated annually. If the frame itself needs decoration, then when planting plants, it is good to provide ampelous or with a drooping stem, picturesquely hanging from top to bottom (chickweed, aubriets, some milkweed, zelenchuk, etc.).

Example 11. Rockery – artificial talus.

Rockeries design: design examples

For the design of such a rockery, an area widening downward between large boulders is ideal. A soil substrate from turf, peat or humus, crushed stone or pebbles is poured into the dug hole with a layer of 20 cm in a ratio of 1: 1: 3. The top layer of soil is removed, the resulting depression is filled with broken brick or crushed stone 20 cm thick, a 5-cm layer of coarse sand or gravel is poured on top. To level the surface of the talus and the surrounding area, a soil mixture for talus is added on top of the sand with a layer of about 20 cm. When planting the plants, the soil is shaken off from the roots. The soil surface around the plant is mulched with a broken stone with a layer of 2 cm. If you place small stones between the plants, the talus will look more attractive. Recommended plants: penstemon, smole, Douglas phlox, ethionema.

Here you can see photos of the most beautiful rockeries in landscape design:

Rockeries design: design examples
Rockeries design: design examples
Rockeries design: design examples
Rockeries design: design examples

Anna Evans

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