I'm in North Carolina, a much cheaper area overall than SF Bay and the local price is $42/cubic yard not including the delivery fee. That is from a sand and gravel dealer, more commercial stuff. Have you checked commercial landscape supply places? Not sure what a local rockery is so that may be the same thing.

What is "a local rockery"? Is that same as landscape supply house?

In CA, yes, some bulk places include rockery in their name, e.g., Payless Hardware and Rockery in San Jose

A rockery is the same as a stone yard.....a place that sells rocks. It may or may not be a landscape supply outfit. Here, rock or stone yards sell rocks and stones....nothing else except items that might be required for a stone or rock hardscape installation. The leading one here (some 20 acres of different rocks) refers to itself as a "rock center".

Sounds a 'lil high falutin to me! Look for the folks who sell to the commercial landscape people. You'll probably find them in an industrial park someplace. At least that's where my local ones are. Nothin fancy.

Nothing "high falutin" about it!! Just a vast expanse of rock and stone with both professional landscapers and homeowners as customers. I order from them frequently for my business.

There are also numerous bulk soil yards around that sell soils, compost and various mulches as well as sand, gravel, crushed rock and river rock. But rarely with much of a selection of larger stone or any flagstone.

Got it. So only the prices are high falutin. :-)

LOL!! No more than anywhere else nearby that sells stone or rocks. They just have a lot more of it!

Not sure if this helps but I found a local tractor guy that is doing my landscape rock and I'm getting discounted price on the gravel/rock. The rock yard sells my choice for $45 a ton and I'm getting it for $20.

A "local rockery" includes landscape materials suppliers. There are some rock suppliers locally who do not sell anything but rocks.

i guess I wasn't very clear in my post. I'm in Arizona. I was suggesting maybe looking for someone who can do the spreading of the rock and see if you can get a discounted price on the material. ( only use licensed people.)

@lindacottonwood If you use a licensed contractor, he is going to provide it to you for his cost plus a markup. He pays the same amounts that everyone pays buying from the local suppliers.

What makes this material cheap is if you live in an area where it is manufactured, and the shipping costs are minimal to the suppliers. Moving such heavy materials 500 miles doubles the cost.

I have been a business owner for over 40 years. I always expect a business owner to make a profit. If my guy wasn't making a profit then shame on him. We were just thrilled that we were able to get a price that was half of what we could get at a local stone yard. Yes we are close to a rock pit.

How does the price of gravel in AZ help the OP who is the SF Bay Area?

I was suggesting maybe looking for someone who can do the spreading of the rock and see if you can get a discounted price on the material.

The price was irrelevant in the advice.

The local price was the question. You hijacked the post to for you own purposes.

I found the best price for Decomposed Granite - FREE. I am in So.Calif. and just drove up into one of the local canyons and pulled off the the road. If you look carefully you will see eroded channels in the side of the canyon walls. At the bottom of these channels you will usually find mounds of loose decomposed granite. I just shovel the DG into old mulch bags and then screen it to get various sizes of DG, all for free. The quality is far better than anything I have found in the big box stores or landscape suppliers.

I found the best price for Decomposed Granite - FREE. I am in So.Calif. and just drove up into one of the local canyons and pulled off the road. If you look carefully you will see eroded channels in the side of the canyon walls. At the bottom of these channels you will usually find mounds of loose decomposed granite. I just shovel the DG into old mulch bags and then screen it to get various sizes of DG, all for free. The quality is far better than anything I have found in the big box stores or landscape suppliers.

There may be similar areas near SF that you can find free DG if you don't mind shoveling it for free.

@ryszard zalewski That would include fines. The advantage of buying a product from a wholesaler is you can get a washed and screened product. Having a lot of experience making gritty mix, I discovered that my cost to wash and filter crushed rock exceeded the cost of the rock.

For Bay Area prices you need to skip the big box stores and call bulk landscape suppliers. Palo Alto Landscape Supply and Lyngso run closer to normal rates when you buy a full load, and delivery drops the cost per yard a lot.