Do you have problems with slugs taking up residence with all the rocks?

I wish I could find the flattish ones..but, can't find enough. These roundish (nonflat) ones are so beautiful. Such interesting shapes and colors, textures & fossils.

How about you? Tell me about your roundish rocks surrounding your gardens & how you do it.

...Beverly

in fact, I sometimes have a "rock party", free beer, and all the rocks you can haul up to my garden area, especially the female rocks, just to keep them from multiplying in the field.

What are you thinking of planting in the big open patches shown in the pics?

http://www.pbase.com/image/9285305

Or it may work if you just click here

Since taking the original photos, I've planted the veggie garden, 125 strawberry plants, 140+ canna rhizomes. More pictures to come, just been too busy with early summer gardening.

...Beverly

What is the blue flowering bush in the center of the photo? A rhodie? Looks like one, but i wasn't sure about the color.

I have an open mind about them in our garden. Interestingly, the shrubs themselves seem to be adopting your preference - in several places they've grown so much that they now hide the rock border. If I conclude it looks better with the rocks hidden, I'll be quite happy to let them stay hidden....

I don't think it's hokey or amaturish if done the right way. I was inspired to do it myself when I saw it done on a garden tour of winners of a landscaping contest. (The judges used some national guideline or whatevers - so, the gardens couldn't have been too amateurish) Anyway, it was striking. The people has dug a slight trench and they put them in. The stones were not balls of rock sitting on top of the soil. Of course, it didn't look "natural" - but, many garden edges are not natural.

I have taken 5 geology classes at the local university over the years. When I look at each stone, I often know what it is, much of it's history, how it was formed. In this part of Ohio where I live it's where the glaciers ended (called the terminal moraine). Thus, there are rocks here that were pushed into this area from a thousand miles away. Every rock tells me a story. I see it's beauty, not a hokey line of stones. It's thrilling to me & beautiful.

Everyone should be encouraged to do what is beautiful to them in there own garden. If it isn't pleasing to YOUR eye - don't do it. Gardening is a personal pleasure.

...Beverly

...Beverly

I think your rock edges look great! The "T Gang" will be willing to "help" you get more any time, I'm sure!

Mimi

We all are entitled to our own individual tastes, I just think it's a lot more pleasant to read POSITIVE opinions when it's an opinion issue at hand...and rocks vs. no rocks is an opinion issue. As my Dad would say: "If you don't like it, lump it." Why bother posting negative vibes?
Li

I think the use of round stones looks more like an early, Colonial, American garden. They used round stones, and twig or wattle fences. All very beautiful in a rustic fashion, and I love rustic!

Here are my newest pictures of my yard showing lots of rocks. The flat ones in front were already here, part of a path that had become too uneven from tree roots. There are a few more 'rock' pictures on this page (scroll down past the frog shots.)

I had thought I would use the rocks to separate the grass from the mulch, but after mowing next to that once, I decided I didn't like it. So I moved most of them to define an area within the mulch area. The rest of them I used to make piles - as 'frogitats' and/or 'toad abodes.' I was shocked by the impact of them, at least to my eye. I think the whole back yard finally stopped looking 'new' when I added them. (Only a small part of the front shade bed was NOT covered by grass at this time last year.)

The really big ones by the little white bench were given to my Mom years ago. I can't pick them up, and rolling them is a strain on my back. They were moved here with the help of my Mom's movers a couple weeks ago. The put them in the minivan for me and I was able to roll them out myself. Incidentally, my Dad was severely complaining about 'paying people to lift rocks' so I managed to get them all to the front yard myself by rolling them into a cooler on wheels. The hardest part was turning the cooler the right way again so I could pull it around the house. This saved me from having to invent some contraption revolving around the thingie that lifts the car so you can change the tire. LOL!! Isn't it amazing how a single big rock weighs so much more than a similar pile of smaller rocks??! Or is it just me?

I'm an urban gardener, and like the rustic and recycled nature of my rocks. Most of mine come from a small pond the prior owner filled in with all manner of rock, concrete chunks and brick. For the price of digging, I've got my border.

It's honestly the type of border I find most appealing for the garden I'm trying to create. I have a very loosely interpreted cottage garden, and encourage plants to tumble over the stone border. [I think I will try to take a page from Herb's books and have a little mulch trench in front, though--though my untrimmed grass certainly makes for a rather, er...*informal* look.] My latest project? Edging a new shade bed composed primarily of salvaged ferns.

This spring was a bad one for slugs, but I can't blame the rocks, just the baby hostas and tomatoes. Fortunately a little slug-be-gone seems to have held the creatures at bay....

I have a few too many photos online, including several closeups of the rocks (g). There are several pages of thumbnails at that link.

Here's a shot of my back wall when the grass around the beds was uncharacteristically tidy:

Davena

Davena

Davena

Thanks so much for showing them!

...Beverly

Since then I started to feel they were arranged with too much of a 'necklace' effect, so I re-arranged them them.

Click here to see the change

Davena

...Beverly