How to make a bed of stones: a few useful tips

The garden is a place of relaxation and a personal corner of the wild, where you can relax your soul. What is a garden without flowers? But the flowers, randomly growing on the site - it is not aesthetically pleasing or stylish. The plot will ennoble an elegant bed of natural stone.

Which stone to choose when making a flower bed?

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

• Natural stone has several advantages compared with artificial imitation: durability, strength, resistance to chemicals, temperature extremes, a variety of colors. The disadvantage is the high cost.
• Artificial stone is made from acrylic, based on polyester resins with additives with a crumb of natural stone. 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, making decorative elements for the garden. Advantages: aesthetics, strength. Disadvantages: compared with other materials - high cost, not all varieties withstand temperature drops, cracks from interaction with the environment can appear.
  instagram viewer

For the construction of a bed of stones, you can choose the following natural rocks:

• Limestone is a popular material. This porous breed is suitable for growing moss.
• Basalt is a stable and durable rock of magmatic origin.
• Granite is a durable, affordable, beautiful material, but oxidizes the soil.
• Gneiss - a breed of metamorphic origin, different unusual colors.
• Sandstone is a rock 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 use several types of flowerbeds:

• Rock garden - imitation of mountainous terrain. The image of the rock garden is emphasized by a miniature pond, stone slides. Stone flower bed in rock gardens should be in the form of a hill. Stones should be natural, rough. Basalt, granite is used.
• Rockery - unlike rock garden, settles on a flat plot. Stones lay out in the form of an asymmetric hill, a hill. Use stones of different sizes - so the flowerbed looks spectacular. The roughness, unevenness of the material creates an amazing contrast with the colors planted in the flowerbed. Rockery - the most common flower bed of stones with his own hands: it does not require large expenditures, it looks beautiful and original.
• The rock garden or the Japanese garden is the embodiment of eastern harmony between man and nature. This is an abundance of stones, which are the main accents in the appearance of the Japanese garden. Large, rounded boulders are placed at different distances from each other - this imitates a mountainous landscape, there may be few plants. The design of a stone bed in a Japanese garden is several large boulders arranged in the shape of a circle, square or rectangle. Sometimes stones are placed asymmetrically. The size of the boulders - it can be samples of the same size or different-sized stones.
• Terraced slope - a way to give the garden the look of a mountainous, hilly area. The stone flower 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 flower bed in the garden is symmetrical, round or square, in the form of a curb. Border made of stone for flower beds are made of large boulders or laid out with layered stones - quartz, slate. Such a flower bed does not oblige to anything, will fit into any style of landscape design and can become a semantic center, an accent, a garden.

What materials are needed for the construction of a flower bed?

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

How to choose a stone?

• Better to choose on natural stone.
• Evaluate financial opportunities.
• Decide on the choice of the type of stone flowerbed: the usual curb, rock arias, rock garden, Japanese garden. Granite or basalt is recommended for rock arias, quartz and shale are mainly used for the border.

Choosing the image of a flower bed, remember - the design of the garden should be your creativity. Fantasy will help create an absolutely unique version of the flower bed. Beautiful flowerbeds made of stone do not have to be copied from the pages of thematic journals.

Stone flower curb

Consider how to create a flower curb. 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 bed of stones in the country will require: stones, cement, trowel, sledgehammer or hammer, water and sand, a special sealant.

• The first step is to plan a place on the plot for a future flower bed. You can drive in pegs or mark out the contours with flour.
• A ditch should be dug along the perimeter of the future flower bed - 10-20 cm deep. 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 up well.
• Layout of the second row.

Pay attention! 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 holding it at the bottom of the flower bed.

• With the help of pegs we outline the upper borders of the border. This is done with the help of a rope, which is tensioned between the pegs - this will allow to lay out a flower bed exactly. When marks are made on the pegs, the rope is removed.
• Preparing cement mortar - it should be homogeneous, thick. The inner walls of the flower bed need to be smeared so that the cement is not visible outside - dry masonry looks aesthetically pleasing, especially from large, rough stones.
• If the masonry is not perfect, you can remove the inaccurately sticking stones with a hammer or sledgehammer.
• The last row should be made of smooth stones.
• The joint between the last and the last but one row must be filled with cement.
• When the solution is dry, it is necessary to treat the flower bed with a sealant from the inside. This is a special substance that will not allow the cement to crack.

Making flowerbeds with stones can be done by anyone who has basic hand tools, fantasy and a free day.

Beds of stones - video ideas