Winning ideas for decorating your garden with stones and rocks
Nature - and natural resources - provides us with a thousand ways of decorating our homes and garden. For example, by using natural rocks, you can create beautiful garden paths, borders, flowerbeds and even artistic garden features. Check out the ideas listed below for using rocks and stones to enhance your garden:
Rock gardens
If you live in an area with a warm climate or an alpine profile, there is certainly a great number of plants that can be used to create a rock garden. For example, you can pile up locally-sourced rocks to decorate a slope in your garden and the plant perennial bushes and seasonal plants amongst them.
Alternatively, you can chose to set up a spice/herb rock garden instead, in much the same manner.
As you can see here, this is an idea that can be adapted to the space you have available. For example, you can set up an elongated rock garden along the line of a garden fence/border.
Gravel garden paths
Garden paths can be transformed into elegant features if they are surfaced with gravel (or other, similar crushed, durable materials). Gravel paths are also well draining, and who can resist the "crunch" of gravel whilst walking on it?
However, if you don't like the idea of walking on gravel, you can always add stone slabs - like the Japanese stepping stones shown here (placed on top of a gravel pathway)!
Rock borders
Any well-stocked garden center sells rocks which are large enough to be placed side by side to create borders in your garden (to mark off a flowerbed, for example).
These rocks come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and colors: in short, you're bound to find something to suit your tastes and budget!
In the example shown here, rocks have been stacked up to create and attractive, low wall.
Creating patterns using river pebbles
River pebbles are the perfect resource for creating decorative elements in a garden. Together with children, you can design and lay out attractive, fun shapes in your garden (such as pebble flowers or animals)...
... but you can also go for something a little more "sophisticated" and unique, like the pebble mosaic shown here, decorating an eye-catching flowerbed.
Flush, side-on rock borders
If you want to place a border between the lawn and a pathway, how about doing it like the example shown here? This neat, tidy effect has been achieved by embedding smooth, flat rocks, side-on into the soil(and just short of being flush with the ground)!
Of course, the color and size of the stones chosen will determine the overall look and effect you are trying to achieve.
Rocks and stones as artistic sculptures in the garden
And how about creating a mini-Stonehenge sculpture in your garden!
And even a more "abstract" stone/rock sculpture - like the one shown here - can look stunning in any garden.
And, of course, you can "borrow" and copy ideas from professional artists, who combine rocks with other materials (such as wood or metal), create amazing sculptures.
Would you like to decorate your garden using rocks?
