Easy-care Landscaping With Rocks and Boulders
Annie Thornton
October 25, 2010
Houzz Editorial Staff
Talk about low maintenance. Everyone wants a showcase landscape, but not all homeowners have the budget or time often required to care for an outdoor space. Specimen rocks and boulders are a great solution for an instantly elegant and low-maintenance landscape. And often there is a selection of slabs already on your property anxiously awaiting use.
Modern landscapes full of right angles and inorganic materials can feel stark and uninhabitable. The animate quality of the boulders makes this space less predictable and breaks up the meticulous geometry.
Add instant zen to any yard. Promote relaxation and meditation by devoting an entire space solely to rock of varying scales.
Rocks strewn across a landscape populate sparsely planted spaces. The continuity unites multiple planting areas.
Working with hillsides can be a challenge. Fortunately, a collaboration of rock walls for slope stability, as well as boulder clusters, create beautiful and functional retaining walls.
All garden styles can benefit from the addition of rock. Here a more traditional cottage style garden uses rock slabs to create a hillside planter.
Boulders serve as the ultimate all-weather seating option.
If a boulder is too massive to relocate, simply build around it. An otherwise mundane concrete driveway or terrace can become a showcase for a natural art piece.
Instead of building through or blasting rock boulders, spectacular monoliths can stand on their own as architectural objects. Constructing your house and landscape to showcase the grandeur of the rock ties the built with the found.
A collection of smaller rocks can make as much of an impact as one big boulder.
One of the best assets of rock is that it legitimizes just about every space. Regardless of whether this water feature occurred naturally in the yard or was carefully designed and constructed, the result is awe inspiring.
What do you think about big boulders in the yard? Let me know in the comments!
More ideas for using boulders in home design
What do you think about big boulders in the yard? Let me know in the comments!
More ideas for using boulders in home design
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I've a few smaller (well, compared to boulders) flattish rocks in my driveway landscape circle. they seem random b/c they look out of place in South Florida but I'm looking forward to find a way to incorporate them into my low-profile modern landscaping. Low maintenance is KEY.
Great ideas! Here are a few more projects that use rock landscaping for more inspiration: https://southwestboulder.com/projects