How To Create A Beautiful Xeriscape Garden With Natural Stone
Xeriscape gardens are becoming more and more popular in residential and commercial properties. This is because these water-wise gardens can look quite charming, they are a lot easier to maintain and they can save you a small fortune in money on garden maintenance and watering.
Gardeners and landscapers have gotten pretty creative with these dry garden types. With the right vegetation and a couple of natural materials like natural stone, you can create garden spaces that hardly need any care at all yet look just as beautiful as any ‘normal’ garden design.
In this guide, we are going to take a look at a couple of brilliant strategies to help you create a xeriscape garden by using lots of natural stone.
Start With Your Access Points
In these dry gardens, those water-consuming lawns are often replaced with more efficient alternatives. These alternatives can look striking but most of these alternatives to lawns are not exactly suitable for walking. The first thing you will need to do is create some access points in high-traffic areas in your garden. This can include a good driveway and walkways to your front door, back door, or a barbecue area in your backyard.
Natural stone can be a terrific low-maintenance material for these access points and there are many different options. It is usually best to focus on stone with a large stepping surface so you can easily keep these surfaces clean. Consider installing large natural stepping stones or get slate walkways installed.
Proper Edging Is Important
Dry gardens usually involve pairing lots of drought-tolerant plant species and other natural features all over your garden. This mix of materials can end up looking messy. If you want to keep a tidy and organised look for your garden then you can add some structure by installing proper stone edges around walkways, garden beds, or around focal points in your garden. Stone edging will make your garden more appealing, and easier to maintain and is helpful for keeping things organised in the garden since different materials like different types of rock won’t spill over or mix.
Use Large Boulders To Create Focal Areas
Large rocky boulders are terrific for creating focal points in your garden and are very useful for filling out garden beds with slow-growing plant species like cacti. The large rocky boulders are naturally attractive and will complement the drought-tolerant plant species in your garden beds. Boulders are also very handy for adding some height and depth to your garden bed.
Consider Gravel As Ground Cover
Loose gravel can be terrific for a ground cover around slow-growing drought-tolerant plant species like cactuses. Gravel with a striking colour like white can also add lots of contrast to your garden which will make your beautiful plants stand out even more. This type of material can also be used as a substitute for lawns or driveways.
Use River Rocks As A Filler Material
If you are having a tough time filling out your garden beds with hardy drought-tolerant plants then you can substitute with river rocks. The round rocks will give your garden an interesting appearance and will fill out your garden bed so you won’t have to buy as many plants.
If you want to create a beautiful water-efficient garden then you should give Stone Edge Landscapes a call. This company specialises in natural stone features and can help you create any of these and many other natural stonework structures or spaces. With their help, you can quickly convert your entire property into a space that is much more eco-friendly.
