How to make a flower bed of stones with your own hands: ideas for stone flower beds

The dacha and the vegetable garden are not only sources of delicious vegetables, fruits, berries, herbs, but also a real field for creative activity. The advantage of decorating on your own is that you can decorate the site with almost any available materials. For example using old car tires, plastic bottles... Natural stone is no less (or even more!) Interesting raw material for creating beautiful compositions on the site. Let's figure out how to work with it and what can be done.

Recommendations and rules for creating stone beds

Stone is a wonderful natural material that has been used for many centuries in the construction of houses, various structures, it is used as a decorative element for the interior decoration of houses, baths, saunas.And on a flower bed, it looks organic, stylish and interesting.

When doing a summer cottage composition with your own hands, you should pay attention to several recommendations:

• It is necessary to lay stones in a flower bed not only beautifully, but also reliably. Make the structure as stable as possible so that if something happens it does not fall apart and damage your plantings in the country.
• It is better to make a simple flower bed than to overdo it and build an overloaded and clumsy composition, so it is better to stay with a simple but elegant design.
• For a summer cottage flower bed with stones, you should choose the optimal location so that it does not interfere with the performance of summer cottage affairs. The ideal place for composition is the center of the plot or a place next to the wall of a house or fence.
• When framing a flower bed with a stone, do not forget about the features of the plants for which you are creating a structure. For light, shade, moisture-loving plants, optimal conditions must be created. For example, if water regularly stagnates on the site, then it is better to make an elevated flower bed.

Video: tips for creating a beautiful flower bed of stone on the site.

Choosing the right material or what stones can you make a flower bed

For the manufacture of do-it-yourself flower beds you can use almost any material, but landscape designers are advised to give preference to certain materials, they look most advantageous in the garden and are easier to work with. To suitable for flower beds to stones relate:

• limestone;

• granite;

• dolomite;

• sandstone;

• shale (gneiss);

• pebbles;

• tuff (travertine);

• basalt.

Popular types of flower beds made of stones

There are many varieties of flower beds made of such natural material in the world, so any summer resident will be able to choose the composition most suitable for his garden and corresponding to his preferences.

Arabesque

The most popular phenomenon in landscape design is a flower garden of an unusual shape, for example, in the form of a flower, plant, animal, etc. (there are many flower garden schemes). Arabesque can be created without stones, just by planting the plants in the correct order, but if you want to decorate the flower beds with this material, then the appearance of the garden will only benefit from this.

A small slope would be an ideal place for an arabesque; it is on it that the flower garden will be best viewed. In order to harmoniously decorate the flower bed with stones with your own hands in this style, it is best to choose plants that reach a maximum size of no more than 15 centimeters. Experienced landscape designers also advise planting bright flowers along the contour of the arabesque with stones, so that the living drawing looks more colorful, and the design of the flower bed looks more elegant.

The photos below are examples of beautiful natural stone flower beds in the Arabesque style:

Rockery

This is a picturesque composition of scattered large and small stones. Most often, slate and limestone are used to decorate such a flower bed. Large stones are dug into the ground, and small ones (most often pebbles) simply crumble nearby. Creeping plants, low shrubs are suitable for rockeries.

Rockery is ideal as the border of any areas of the garden, a decorative area around the house or any building. Very often, this type of decoration is used to create beautiful and cozy seating areas. The optimal place for creating rockeries is a flat area with small hills and drops. It is also worth choosing an open place with good lighting.

Video: the phased creation of rockeries from stones.

Japanese stone garden

A distinctive feature of this style is large rounded stones, which are located at some distance from each other. They are usually covered with moss, and small pebbles are scattered between them. In such a garden, it is important to leave a lot of free space and at the same time create a sense of privacy from prying eyes. Minimalism is a key component of a Japanese garden.

Gabion

The structure of the mesh filled with stones looks like a fence. Gabion can be used as a fence, facade, arch, fountain and, of course, to decorate a flower bed. A flower bed made of mesh and stones with your own hands should be done carefully and efficiently so that the structure stands securely and pleases you for a long time.

Video: how to make a gabion from mesh and stones.

Alpine slide

The finest "invention" in landscape design, because an interesting composition imitates a beautiful mountain landscape. Such decoration of a flower bed with stones is ideal for recreation areas in the country, in the garden or next to the house.

The Alpine slide is recommended to be installed on a small slope. And it is best to lay stones for the future composition in the fall, so that they have the opportunity to sink into the ground and take a natural look.

Video: how to make an alpine slide with your own hands.

Standard flower bed

is a conventional fencing made of natural material of small size. As a rule, an ordinary flower bed has a round, oval, rectangular shape. The photo below is an example of such a composition:

How to lay out a flower bed of stones: the main stages of creation

To correctly make a flower bed of stones with your own hands, you need to know the sequence of the event and some of the nuances. Regardless of the type of construction, creating a composition includes the following steps:

1. Choose a place on the site... In an open area, it is appropriate to place round, oval, rectangular structures that are visible from all sides. For structures along walls, paths, semicircular, rectangular shapes are recommended.
2. Choose the shape and size of the composition... Decide which one you want to lay out a flower bed of stones, you can even make a sketch of the composition or draw laughter.
3. Make a markup on the site for the future structure... This step will help you recreate the desired shape for the composition.
4. Prepare a place on the site... To do this, you need to remove all unnecessary from the selected area: garbage, grass.
5. Cover the flowerbed with stones... Features of the process will depend on what kind of flower garden you are creating.
6. Plant plants... After the design is completely ready, you can start planting plants and flowers.

Step-by-step instructions for creating a fence

Stone fencing is very common for flower beds. This design looks more solid and stable. To make a beautiful fence for a flower bed made of stone with your own hands, you must follow the following instructions:

• First of all, you need to create the foundation for the structure. To do this, mark the future border with twine and a peg. Then, dig a small trench in this area - the depth is about 30 centimeters, and the width should correspond to the parameters of the natural materials you have chosen.
• Roofing material or polyethylene should be placed at the bottom of the trench. After that, you can start pouring concrete. You can build such a flower bed of stones with or without cement. If desired, you can simply lay out geotextiles in the trench, filling it 1/3 with sand.
• If you still decide to make the foundation with concrete, then it should completely solidify, and after that you can start laying the flower beds from wild stone. Since they have a different and unique shape, there are always voids between them when laying, so they must be filled with earth, which should be carefully tamped. And if you covered the depression with sand, then first of all you need to put its largest fractions into the trench.
• After the stones are halfway out of the depression, you can use a grout (if you choose to work with this material). When creating a stone fence, it is necessary to use a cement solution only on the inner surface of the stone blocks, thanks to this, the effect of naturalness will be achieved.
• If you decide not to use cement for a flower bed made of natural stones, then it is advisable to build a low fence (no more than 60 centimeters). It is necessary to carefully select stones so that they fit together as much as possible, and when laying the empty space between the material, fill it with earth.
• About a week after creating the border, you can start planting flowers and plants.

Note! When finishing the fence, it is necessary to provide drainage holes.

The photo shows examples of how you can make a flower bed of stones in the form of a fence with your own hands using cement:

Anyone can make a flower bed of stones with their own hands. With due diligence, you can create a real masterpiece of landscape design in your yard of a private house or in the country, which will decorate your site for many years.