Stones for landscape design +50 photo examples of use

To arrange a summer cottage at no extra cost, prudent owners use the materials at hand. Some people are lucky: there are stones of different sizes in the hacienda area. How to realize the existing wealth? Use the natural potential to make the garden special, unique, memorable.

Stone types: main features

To decorate the area around the country house, designers suggest combining four natural elements - earth, water, wood (live plants) and stone. Decorative stones for landscape design are selected based on the appearance of the main structure.

Garden styles using stone decor:

• castle;
• Japanese minimalism (rock garden);
• rural;
• classicism;
• antique.

The chosen style dictates the use of a particular material. Wild stone differs in the degree of strength (granite possesses the greatest), dimensions, colors, ease of processing. Artificial material is what the customer wants to see. Special additives increase strength, expand the color palette, create a structure, increase the dirt and water repellency properties, regulate weight. In addition, concrete stones can be made by hand using forms for garden paths.

Natural stone - a gift of nature

The variety of natural (natural) stone is so great that it is easy to choose the right option that takes into account the required characteristics.

Artificial stone: infinite variability

The use of natural stone as the main material to create a beautiful landscape around a country house has been practiced for a long time. However, modern technologies offer natural material a worthy alternative - artificial stone. He is not inferior to his brother in quality characteristics, in addition, having undoubted advantages:

• The widest color palette;
• Extended dimension range;
• Significant weight loss;
• The ability to create elements of complex configuration (tops of fence posts, cast columns, balusters, inlays);
• The ability to imitate any texture.

Artificial stone includes brick types, clinker, concrete-based products, synthetic options using natural stone chips. The main point when choosing an artificial stone is confidence in compliance with all technological conditions during its production.

Size matters

The simplest dimensional classification of a natural stone is the variant where all the variety is divided into categories:

1. 1. Lump - stone formation of large volume with sharp edges;
   2. A boulder is a large volume stone of rounded shape;
   3. Cobblestone - a rounded formation of medium size (up to 30 cm);
   4. Crushed stone - the result of crushing large stones, has sharp edges, 5-15 cm;
   5. Pebbles - stones of flat rounded shape up to 10 cm;
   6. Baby - the smallest fraction of crushed natural stone.

In the landscape design of your own home, you can use any size. The huge boulder will become the focus of the alpine slide, the rubble stone - the foundation of the basement, the cobblestones will be used to build a fence. The rounded middle stones will be framed flower beds, retaining walls on the terrace area. Flattened pebbles, set on the edge, forming spiral patterns, will decorate garden paths. Crushed stone of the smallest fraction will provide mulching groups of evergreen plants.

The color of stone chips should harmoniously complement the green shades of conifers - gray-graphite shades successfully shade the bluish needles, red-brown - the traditional green.

Granite: application in landscape design

Durability, weather resistance, soft colors, availability - these are the main advantages of this material. The disadvantages include the weight and complexity of processing.
Examples of the use of granite:

• Granite boulder is an excellent vertical for arranging a rest corner with sun loungers. On sunny days, the stone heats up quite strongly, therefore, having closed the other sides with a hedge, the owners of the suburban area will receive a zone with a unique microclimate, where you can sunbathe even in early spring.
• Granite pavers - almost eternal material. The garden path of paving stones (a small cobblestone) will even serve great-grandchildren, and its laying is comparable in simplicity to the game of children's cubes.
• Granite rubble or screenings - serves to fill the space between the individual stones in rockeries, alpine hills, emphasizing the "stony" of the man-made composition.

Sandstone - light, beautiful, smooth

Sandstone allows you to get flat plates of desired thickness with torn edges, is widely used to create garden paths, trim the basement of the house, they are framed by the contours of elevated flower beds, creating the desired height.

If sandstone slabs are not sealed with mortar, the inner part of the flower bed is duplicated with dense geotextile to prevent leaching of fertile soil through the gaps during watering.

When filling the garden walkway bed, geometrically regular sandstone tiles allow for minimal clearance. It is optimal as a material for the construction of retaining walls: a flat surface facilitates laying. Flat faces can fit so well together that they sometimes use the “dry masonry” method, excluding binding compounds. Slabs of reduced thickness are successfully suited for decorating vertical surfaces, cladding small architectural forms.

Limestone (shell rock): we study pluses

An airy, porous, but strong enough stone interspersed with the remains of biological organisms is suitable for the construction of wall structures of light structures (gazebos, belvederes, arches, pseudo-antique ruins), and lining of solid structures. For increase in service life it is recommended to process it water-repellent structures.

Limestone color adds warmth to the atmosphere of country life. Shell rock goes to the creation of garden furniture (benches, sun beds), the construction of the barrier walls separating the garden from the main space. This fence looks like a picture from a glossy garden magazine and has 2 big advantages:

• the zone of garden plants warms up better, the walls protect from the effects of winds;
• With natural weathering, the rock enriches the earth with calcium compounds, which are transferred to "garden residents".

If there is a boulder in the garden

A huge stone at the dacha - an insurmountable problem or a good opportunity to make garden space unique? It all depends on the campaign to resolve the issue. If you can not eliminate what is bothering you, make a stone designer accent.

Blocks of considerable height can become central stones in the construction of alpine slides, less high, stretched horizontally - the basis of rockeries. The space between them is filled with cobblestones, volumetric horizontal planes are filled with rubble or pebbles. A separate expressive stone is able to play the role of a modern conceptual sculpture, acquired for "big money."

In order not to get into an unpleasant situation, when you completed the markup, you began to dig a foundation pit, and suddenly it turned out that in one of its corners there is a huge boulder, do a spot drilling test. Making sure there are no obstacles, proceed to the land works.

We decorate a country plot with stone

Having created a landscape design project, having decided on the objects to be embodied in stone, it is necessary to decide which material is better to use.

Artificial stone (concrete with the addition of plasticizers) can be used for personal creation of garden art objects. As the forms are used large-leaved plants (rhubarb, burdock), and the result is the original drinkers for birds, framing elements of flower beds. Masters cut out sculptures from it, imitating the interlacing of woody branches, reproducing the texture of bark.

Stone for stairs and walkways: highlights

Garden paths, stairs, descents - landscape design objects that are experiencing the greatest load. The materials for their creation are subject to increased strength requirements. With a high-quality foundation, the front surface can be either a natural or an artificial sized stone. The use of limestone is complicated by the need to select fragments, laying out with cobblestones takes a lot of time, making pebbled mosaics requires artistic taste and great patience. The use of artificial analogs puts the work on the construction of a pedestrian walkway on the stream: all the blocks are ideally suited to each other, the amount of waste is reduced to zero, the coverage options are numerous. Concrete stones with woody texture create the complete illusion of a path made of wooden blocks. Concrete paving stones can be ordered in the main color of the house to maintain the unity of the building and the surrounding space.

Natural harmony - the union of water and stone

Owners of ancient stone fountains can only envy. Today, these design objects are more often made of molded concrete. But they can be made independently, using various clichés, to cascade elements and, having provided installation of light sources, to receive the shining falls. Creating a stepped fountain of wild stone is also easy to implement: it uses limestone, through which water flows. But the device pond is advisable only with the use of natural stone.

A pond is a natural reservoir, even if it is man-made, therefore an artificial analogue is of little relevance here. The mirror of the pond is framed with a stone that is resistant to moisture: it can be either slab or rounded. The main thing is to make the stone edging as natural as possible. The top step of the pond, the bio-plateau where the plants are planted, is filled with coarse pebbles, small cobblestones, in addition to the ground, so that the base holds the roots tightly.

Stone beds: we frame flower beds according to the style of the plot

When designing flower beds, the style of a country house serves as a model. Accordingly, he selected the size, shape and material that goes to the fencing of flower beds:

• Classic style involves the creation of geometric flower beds (round, square, rectangular). For their edging fit granite curbs, or analogues of artificial stone, emphasizing clear lines.
• The country style of the dacha will be supported by lush flower beds of smooth forms, their contours will be distinguished by low walls raised from the ground level made of cobblestone, limestone, artificial bricks.
• The raid of antiquity in the garden will add a fence for the flower bed, made of blocks of limestone with a weathered surface.

Small, but the distance: rubble, pebbles, baby

Most gardeners want to relax in the countryside, spending a minimum of time on garden work. Therefore, a modern garden dictates special requirements for the arrangement of space: do it once, do not dig, do not weed. Provide a solution to a difficult problem capable of crushed stone. When planning plant compositions, it is necessary to provide for their mulching with stone chips. For this purpose, crushed stone with a fraction of the lower limit. Using different colors of dumping, you can enhance the visual effect - the horizontal surface of the flower beds itself will become an element of garden decor. Backfilling small gaps between the main boulders of rock aquarium will allow creeping plants (sedum, young, stonegrass) to grow freely, and laying small pebbles under the plants in bulk flowerpots will eliminate the appearance of weeds. An interesting garden element can be a “dry stream” - a channel lined with pebbles with a forged bridge will add a touch of romanticism to country life.

What should not be forgotten

The choice of the material, the implementation of their own fantasies - it is the prerogative of the owner of the suburban area. The main thing when using stone in landscape design is its relevance, compliance with the chosen architectural style, as well as the size of properties. Marble Hercules on 6 acres with a wooden house will cause confusion, a miniature alpine slide will look strange among ship pines. But a quality object, corresponding to the general concept, will delight the eye every day.