Building a Rockery

A rockery is a great way to interest and colour in any garden, one can also look fantastic when constructed near a garden pool or around a waterfall. Here is our guide to building a rockery.

Start by making sure your ground is weed free, measure the area you wish to turn into a rockery and order two good sized rockery stones for every square metre of surface area. The soil should be free draining, a mixture of half compost half horticultural grit is good.

Dig the stones deeply into the soil so that sometimes half or two-thirds of the stone is buried. Angle each rock slightly with the front higher than the back (so water will run back into the rockery and not wash off any soil.

Build at random, placing rocks so that pockets of soil are formed between them (this will be where you plant). Be careful not to make the pattern of the rocks to formal and regular, the best look is a natural one – think alpine mountain debris scattered about. Use your imagination and have fun.

After constructing, the fun really starts and you can start to plant. You can use any of our alpine plants but some other plants will do well too, consider dwarf conifers, heathers and dwarf bulbs. Look at the labels of each plant you choose as it will give you a guide on spacing and spread. A rough guide is to allow one plant per square foot. For a fantastic rockery make sure you have plants that will flower all year round. After you have finished planting cover the surface with smaller grit or pebbles to complete the look and suppress weeds. While plants establish themselves water as necessary and check for weeds otherwise a rockery is very low maintenance.