How to make a rocker with your own hands in the country
General principles of the correct installation of rockaria by one's own hands
Real rock garden - the destiny of a few enthusiasts willing to devote their time and energy to growing precisely Alpine plants with very specific requirements for growing conditions, often completely opposite to those that are created during the construction of our alpine hills. In addition, they are rather not a garden ornament, but a botanical collection, where everything is subordinate to the environment and is often accompanied by tablets with the name of each plant.
A rockarium is any decorative composition with the presence of stones and plants. It can be slide, a dry wall, a gravel garden imitating a rocky scree, just lying alone a large stone, preferably with traces of a "long life", slightly gone into the ground, overgrown with mosses and lichens. Everything depends on the taste and wishes of the owner, which should be based on the actual conditions of the site. It's absurd to ask to build a rocky hill of three meters in an absolutely flat tiny garden. Always be guided by a sense of proportion and common sense. The same concerns the choice stones.
It is not advisable to use stones of different origin and species, for example, boulders with their rounded surface do not combine well with weathered limestones. In addition, it must be taken into account that the same limestone is not suitable for some plant species that prefer acidic or neutral soils. When building a stone garden, one should be guided by the basic principle - even without plants, rockeries can not look like a foreign body on your site, it should be beautiful in itself.
It is desirable that the rockery is not located under the trees. Deciduous species will significantly complicate the care for it, since many plants planted on the slides can not bear the weights of the wet foliage. In addition, there is a risk of destruction of the foundation by the roots of large trees.
As a rule, a place for rockaria is chosen to be open, sunny, although there are shady "slides", but the assortment of plants in this case must be absolutely definite, adapted to the given parameters.
Especially carefully it is necessary to approach to a choice of plants which you are going to plant in your stony garden. There is always a temptation to come to the garden center or the market, buy something very "beautiful and necessary." Do not give in to the first impression. If any plant has sunk into your soul, carefully study the literature at home about it or refer to the help of the World Wide Web, perhaps you will understand that this plant is absolutely not suitable for your conditions. After all, depending on the type of stones you create in your rockeries specific soil acidity.
Beginners of rocky hills can be advised a certain set of plants that do not need increased attention and meet all the requirements of stony gardens. They should not be too high, wide and aggressive. After all, the purpose of plants is to emphasize the beauty of the stones and become their worthy frame. That's why you do not need to use fertile soils to soil a stone garden, because even the tiniest plant can grow to such incredible and, most importantly, completely uncharacteristic dimensions under such "favorable" conditions.
From the point of view of a normal person, the conditions in which plants live on stony ground are extremely extreme. Poor soil, its small volume, due to this constant drying. The most suitable in this case are Cleaning и young, which are able to survive in the most unfavorable conditions. There are some other types that are undemanding to soils, which can be successfully grown on stones, are small-bellied, one of the first creating a decorative effect, a long-term alissum, arabes and aubrieta, various types of gazelle, acenes, geychers and carnations. The main thing is that the created compositions do not contradict the laws of nature and artistic taste.
On the a photo at the top of the article you can see examples and samples of rockeries (click the link to see the full album). By such schemes and plans you can make your own rockery yourself and create an additional cozy corner at your dacha with your own hands, even without any notions about landscape design.
A few more tips on how to mount a rock garden can be read here
Below other entries on the topic "Dacha and garden - with their own hands"
- How to decorate a flower garden and a flower bed in a country house in Japanese style
- Mini-flower garden with own hands (photo and selection of plants)
- Rare plants for the middle zone of Russia - robinia, wisteria and acacia
- The main types of flower beds - the names and description
- Trees and shrubs with beautiful fruits - photo, description and name
- Fir for the garden - types and forms, photos and description
- Landscaping of the site - where to start: the construction of the area around the cottage
- We make a fountain in the country with our own hands
- How to make an alpine slide in your country house - Part 2
- Garden flowerbeds (photo) or flower beds in the "garden"
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Last year, I decided to make a rockery on a summer cottage. I laid out picturesque stones, planted plants that are recommended for rockeries ... However, this corner never became beautiful. For some reason, the plants did not want to take root, they died, despite the departure. Why isn’t anything growing in my rockery?
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When creating a rockery, it should be remembered that in order to obtain a picturesque corner it is necessary not only to lay out the stones, but also to choose the right place, to prepare the soil, to remove the weeds, to lay drainage, to pick plants in accordance with the soil-climatic zone and illumination.
The basic requirements for the seat: the presence of drainage (10-12 cm), then a large river sand (4-5 cm) and a layer of fertile soil (10-15 cm). Depending on the location of rockaria, plants are selected: photophilous (for well-lit areas), shade-tolerant (in the shade of buildings, along the fence, under the crowns of trees), moisture-loving (near water bodies). The composition of vegetation can be the most diverse: coniferous, ground cover, cereal, bulbous. Beginners should preferably opt for the most unpretentious plants.
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Several years ago I decided to build a rockery on the site. Alpine hill I already have. I wanted something more diverse, one might say, fantasy. After all, the rockery is different from the Alpine hill, that you "build it" only by relying on your imagination.
The most difficult thing in creating rockaria, perhaps - to pick up the stones, I conceived a large area of rockery. Therefore, the basis for different parts of it
was prepared in different ways. Where there was planned free space (a playground for rest and places for passage), just sowed lawn grass and arranged several stones. There. where the stones had to be combined with plants, I had to work harder. First I took off the top layer of the earth and laid the drainage out of the rubble and sand. In some places I laid bricks. She buried it on top of the ground, tamped it. After laying stones, plants began to plant. Most plants took from their garden. But I had to buy something. First of all, she planted several conifers, two thai and juniper, and, of course, her favorite roses - a few bushy and one lacey.
And then, as they say, it raced. I wanted to put many, many things on my stony flower bed. Medinitsa, lily of the valley, nasturtium, violets, primroses, tulips, phloxes, irises, peonies, delphinium, lilies, chrysanthemums appeared there. "The islets-sow flax and poppies. My rocker begins to bloom early in the spring and "falls asleep, only in late autumn.
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Rockary is a composition imitating a picturesque mountain landscape, where plants are combined with natural stones.
The rockery can be both planar and high-altitude. In rockery planted a variety of plants, but in the rock garden - only Alpine.
Since in the rock garden plants are placed in the pockets filled with soil among the stones, in it on a limited area, calcium-loving plants (alpine, steppe) can adjoin with plants preferring acidic soil (ferns, conifers, heathers).
Often as a basis for a rocky hill, use the soil removed during the construction of the pond. In this case, the rockery is best placed next to the pond, so it will look more organic. Place your rockery on a sunny plot, not too close to home and large trees. If you want to build a rocky hill, it is necessary to lay a drainage layer of gravel, rubble or broken brick, fill it with sand and compact it. Before this, it is necessary to remove the top layer of soil thickness of 20-30 cm. Do not use construction debris as a drainage, it can damage plants. Form a hill, then lay stones (limestone, sandstone, granite, shell rock). It is advisable to use stones of the same kind, the shape and dimensions may be different. The composition is formed of several large boulders and many small stones that fill the space between them. Large stones are buried on
half height so they do not swing. It is advisable to put several flat stones so that they can be stepped on when caring for plants. Then select the places for planting plants and fill them with fertile soil (for each plant a suitable substrate is selected). On the southern slope plant light-loving crops, on the northern - shadow-tolerant. Plants are selected so that the rockery was decorative from spring to autumn.
With stones, dwarf forms of conifers are well combined: spruce, thai. junipers. as well as creeping shrubs: Stefanandra, Dummer's cousin, soil-covering varieties are irreplaceable: saxifrages, zhivichki, thyme. young, sedums. pancakes, Iberites, phloxes are subulate, carnations. The rockery will be decorated with ferns, heathers, plants with decorative form and interesting coloring of the leaves (fescue, geyhera), they will look beautiful even after flowering. In spring, crocuses, snowdrops, Hionodox, primroses, muscari, undersized tulips look great in rockery.
1. Everyone can create such a miniature hatch
using different varieties of young. A white marble crust mimics a stream.
2. Fragment of rockaria. All photos:
A. Belousova