How to make beautiful flower beds from stones: a practical guide
Content
Choosing a stone
The first important decision in thinking about how to make a flower bed from stones is the choice of the stone itself. It is unlimited in anything, you can use the simplest sandstone and limestone, as well as expensive granite, and bricks, ordinary or decorative. The color of the stone is chosen depending on whether the focus will be on the borders or on the plants. In the first case, you can use bright materials - blue or purple gneiss, yellow sandstone, cream limestone, dark red granite, greenish black basalt, and so on. Plants in this case need to choose medium-sized and undersized plants so that they fully set off the beauty of the stone.
If it is flowers that solo in this landscape design with their own hands, then this place can be overlaid with simple sandstone or limestone. It is important to remember that some stones are extremely hygroscopic and therefore need to be treated with water-repellent impregnations. You can do this with your own hands, but before you start decorating the flower bed.
Large stones - limestone, granite, tuff, as well as bricks - are well suited for raised structures. In order to highlight paths or curbs, you can take regular pebbles or chips. You can also highlight more expensive types of stone and cheaper ones. Or those that are easier or more difficult to handle with your own hands.
The latter include hard granite and basalt. But these are durable stones, with high frost resistance and resistance to precipitation. This means that your flower bed will look neat even in bad weather, and in winter it will undoubtedly show that you are a master of landscape design. The use of different types of stone is allowed, as long as it corresponds to the general aesthetic concept and does not affect the quality of the masonry. In addition, recently, the arrangement of flower beds with a construction mesh filled with stone has been gaining popularity. These are the so-called gabions. A flower bed made of mesh and stones gives the site an original look in an industrial style, especially since the mesh can be given any shape.
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What materials will be required
When you have chosen a stone and decided on a design, you will need to pick up tools and additional materials. You will almost certainly need a tape measure, shovel, mallet, and spatulas. It is most convenient to fix stones with cement. If desired, you can treat the masonry with a water-repellent wipe or varnish.
Making a beautiful flower bed
The Internet is a great help in finding a drawing of almost any flower garden made of stones, as well as seeing a master class on its construction. From the technical point of view, the creation of such a flower garden in the country is identical to the arrangement of a greenhouse, with the only difference that the flower bed brings impractical benefits, but an aesthetic pleasure. You will have to work hard with your own hands in any case.
Design starts with markup.It is advisable to arrange a flower bed either in the foreground, not far from the entrance to the site, or in front of the house, or in the center of the site. In any case, it is necessary to consider whether predominantly light-loving or shade-loving plants will be planted and, in accordance with this, select a place. The next step after marking is to dig a ditch around the perimeter of the future flower garden. Usually, a depth of 20-25 centimeters and the same width is enough. If a multi-tiered building is planned, then the foundation can be made deeper and support reinforcement can be used. The ditch needs to be filled with concrete, and after a couple of days, when the foundation dries out, start laying stones.
The stones should first be sorted out, and the most beautiful and even ones should be selected in order to decorate the upper tier at the end of construction. The rest, starting with the largest ones, are laid in rows on the foundation. The voids between the stones should be filled with cement mortar and earth with your own hands, tamping it tightly. A small tip - a slight inward slope of the stones during laying will provide a higher strength class. In addition, it is worth avoiding cement drips on the outside of the masonry, so the finished flower bed will be much more aesthetically pleasing. For better drainage, you can leave several gaps in the bottom row between the stones of the stones.
The first layer, which will fill the flower bed, is crushed stone, large pebbles, thick branches, that is, everything that can provide drainage. The higher the masonry is collected (and the higher the finished flower garden will be), the more drainage material may be needed. The next layer is leaves and peat, then the soil mixture is poured with their own hands. After that, you need to wait a few days for the soil to shrink, fill up the missing part and you can start planting flowers. By following these simple recommendations, you can easily arrange a beautiful flower bed in the country.
Possible difficulties
Possible mistakes that may lie in wait when building a flower garden from stones in the country:
- First, the wrong location. Before you start decorating a decorative flower garden, you should make sure that it will not interfere in this place of the site, but at the same time it will be clearly visible, otherwise the meaning of all the work will be lost.
- Secondly, the wrong choice of stone. For example, granite greatly increases the acidity of the soil, and this limits its use.
- Third, haste and ignorance of technological norms. The concrete at the base must dry completely, the masonry and the soil inside must shrink, and only then can the design of the flower bed begin.
Nevertheless, it is worth considering all the weak points and trying, because beautiful flower beds in the country are pleasing to the eye, soothing and helping to feel an advantage over neighbors.
Decorating a finished flower bed
Depending on the size, both low-growing plants and shrubs or dwarf trees can be used on stone beds. The first class in floriculture is annual plants, and they are well suited for a newly created flower bed of stones. At least, if problems with masonry suddenly appear, there will be no need to replant the plants. Seedlings are planted on the chosen one after the onset of heat.
Purslane is a popular annual plant. It is unpretentious to the soil, blooms from June to early autumn, but requires relatively high temperatures and a lot of light. It grows well on the south side of the site. Large-flowered purslane flowers can be white, yellow, orange, red, cream and even double, and therefore the flower bed will be bright and colorful enough even without companion plants.
The next popular plant is ageratum. It blooms from June to September, with beautiful terry corollas in various shades of blue and purple. The plant is quite whimsical to heat, abundant watering, top dressing and timely pruning, but, nevertheless, it can live in the same flower bed with its neighbors - calendula, marigolds, snapdragons.This will allow you to create complex designs in contrasting colors.
Of the several types of marigolds for flower beds, low-growing ones are best suited. This is one of the most beloved and unpretentious garden plants. Being sun-loving, the flowers grow well in the shade, and delight the eye with all shades of yellow and orange. Flowers persist until the first frost, but the plant needs good drainage and regular loosening of the soil.
To add red hues, choose calceolaria (blooms in April - May) or nasturtium (blooms from June until the first frost). Saturated yellow will give calendula (May - September), bright blue will add lobelia (June - September). Alpine poppy (May-July) and Iberis (May-August) bloom white, snapdragon pink and purple (June-September). Aster will bloom until late autumn and in different shades. When arranging a flower bed of perennial plants, it is imperative to think about their protection in winter. On flower beds decorated with a stone border, different types of violets, daisies, forget-me-nots, chickweed, saxifrage, carnation, creeping veronica, dwarf swimsuit, crocus flowers look beautiful.
To complete the design of the flower bed, it can be covered with decorative stone chips. In addition to an attractive appearance, this will also provide soil mulching. Sometimes you don't have to bother with planting. Choose several large unusual stones, arrange them around the site, fill the space between them with ordinary or decorative pebbles, and the rock garden is ready with your own hands. A great alternative to flower beds! A self-made flower bed of stones will confirm better than anything else that you are a master of floriculture.
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