How to make a flower bed from stones: some useful tips

The garden is a place of relaxation and a private corner of the wilderness where you can relax your soul. What is a garden without flowers? But flowers that randomly grow on the site are not aesthetically pleasing and not stylish. The site will be ennobled by an elegant flower bed made of natural stone.

What stone to choose when making a flower bed?

The flower bed can be made of natural or artificial stone:

• Natural stone has several advantages over artificial imitation: durability, strength, resistance to chemicals, temperature extremes, variety of colors. The disadvantage is the high cost.
• Artificial stone is made from acrylic based on polyester resins with additives with natural stone chips. Synthetic stone imitates the texture and color of granite, sandstone, slate and other rocks. Most often, artificial stone is used to create furniture, cladding of buildings, stairs, and the manufacture of decorative elements for the garden. Advantages: aesthetics, durability. Disadvantages: compared to other materials - high cost, not all varieties can withstand temperature changes, cracks may appear from interaction with the environment.

To build a flower bed of stones, you can choose the following natural rocks:

• Limestone is a popular material. This porous breed is suitable for growing mosses.
• Basalt is a stable and durable rock of magmatic origin.
• Granite is a durable, affordable, beautiful material, but it oxidizes the soil.
• Gneiss is a rock of metamorphic origin, it is distinguished by an unusual color.
• Sandstone is a breed represented by a wide range of colors. The disadvantage is insufficient strength.
• Quartz is a beautiful breed, represented by a rich palette of colors.

In landscape design, several types of flower beds are used:

• Rock garden - an imitation of a mountainous area. The image of a rock garden is emphasized by a miniature pond and stone slides. A stone bed in a rock garden should be in the shape of a hill. The stones should be natural, rough. Basalt and granite are used.
• Rockery - unlike rock garden, is equipped on a flat area. The stones are laid out in the form of an asymmetric slide, a hill. They use stones of different sizes - this makes the flower bed look more spectacular. The roughness, irregularities of the material create an amazing contrast to the flowers planted in the flower bed. Rockery is the most common do-it-yourself bed of stones: it does not require large expenses, it looks beautiful and original.
• A rock garden or a Japanese garden is the embodied oriental harmony of man and nature. It is an abundance of stones, which are the main accents in the appearance of a Japanese garden. Large, rounded boulders are located at different distances from each other - this imitates a mountain landscape, there may be few plants. The design of a stone flower bed in a Japanese garden is a few large boulders, laid in the form of a circle, square or rectangle. Sometimes the stones are arranged asymmetrically. The size of the boulders - these can be samples of the same size or stones of different sizes.
• A terraced slope is a way to give the garden the appearance of a mountainous, hilly area. A stone bed is very useful here - they use granite, slate, quartz, sandstone, limestone. The choice of stone depends on the preferences of the owner of the garden. A flower bed in such a garden can be multi-tiered.
• The most common garden bed is symmetrical, round or square, in the form of a border. A stone border for a flower bed is made of large boulders or laid out with layered stones - quartz, slate. Such a flower bed does not oblige you to anything, it will fit into any style of landscape design and can become a semantic center, accent, garden. Take a look photo of saxifrage to decorate the flower bed!

What materials are needed to build a flower bed?

• Sand, water, cement are the basic materials with which the flower bed becomes strong. A flower bed made of stones and cement does not require a large amount of materials - one bag of cement (10-15 kg) is enough. Cement is not always used when erecting flower beds, sometimes boulders are simply laid tightly without additional fastening with any materials.
• Bucket, container for solution preparation. You will need several buckets or any other unnecessary container.
• Tools - spatula, hammer, trowel. Surely, every owner has such tools. With their help, you can trim the design of the flower bed.
• Work clothes. It is recommended to use protective goggles and gloves.
• Material - natural or artificial stone. This material is in every building materials store. Perhaps the remains of the stone were "lying around" at neighbors or friends. In any case, getting a stone for building a flower bed is not a difficult task.

How to choose a stone?

• It is better to opt for natural stone.
• Assess your financial capabilities.
• Decide on the choice of the type of stone flower bed: a regular border, rockery, rock garden, Japanese garden. For rockeries, granite or basalt is recommended, for the curb, mainly quartz and slates are used.

When choosing the image of a flower bed, remember that the design of the garden should be your creativity. Fantasy will help create an absolutely unique version of the flower bed. Beautiful flower beds of stone do not have to be copied from the pages of thematic magazines.

Stone flower bed

Let's consider how to create a flowerbed-border. Making a flower bed with stones takes from 2 to 7 days, and the amount of material can be calculated with the help of a specialist in a building materials store. To make a flower bed of stones in the country, you will need: stones, cement, a spatula, a sledgehammer or a hammer, water and sand, a special sealant.

• The first step is to outline a place on the site for the future flower bed. You can drive in pegs or outline the contours with flour.
• It is necessary to dig a ditch along the perimeter of the future flower bed - 10-20 cm deep. The depth depends on the size of the stones.
• At the bottom of the ditch, you can begin to lay out the largest stones - this will be the first row, it is the main one, therefore it is necessary to tamp it efficiently.
• Layout of the second row.

Note! The first 3 rows do not need to be fixed with cement mortar - it will retain water in the flower bed. Water should not flow out, but it is not worth keeping it at the bottom of the flower bed either.

• Using the pegs, outline the upper borders of the border. This is done with a rope that is pulled between the pegs - this will allow you to lay out the flower bed evenly. When the pegs are marked, the rope is removed.
• We prepare the cement mortar - it must be homogeneous, thick. It is necessary to cover up the inner walls of the flower bed so that the outside of the cement is not visible - dry masonry looks aesthetically pleasing, especially from large, rough stones.
• If the masonry is not perfect, you can remove the sloppy stones with a hammer or sledgehammer.
• The last row should be made of even stones.
• The joint between the last and the penultimate row must be filled with cement.
• When the solution dries, you need to treat the flower bed with a sealant from the inside. This is a special substance that will prevent the cement from cracking.

Decorating flower beds with stones is within the power of anyone who has basic hand tools, imagination and a free day.

Flowerbeds of stones - video ideas