How To Build A Rock Garden With Weed Prevention

 Weed control methods for your rock garden are relatively straightforward, provided you build it with an action plan.  A rock garden is also known as a rockery or an alpine garden which can include various rocks of all sizes. Here included tips and a recipe to kill weeds, keeping your property in top-notch shape. 

You’ll be the star of your neighborhood, and you’ll get asked how you do it. Being proud of your property takes hard work and maintenance. Let’s walk through the process of building a rock garden with weed prevention. 

Build A Garden With Rocks And Mulch

Not one house on the street had a lawn; instead, they had a rock garden that brightened the property and looked professional. I devised sustainable front garden ideas for the homeowner without a green thumb.

Instead, everyone had rock gardens, and they were gorgeous and unique based on the homeowner’s preference. However, you can’t just start putting rocks on top of the soil because it takes more work than that.

Rock Garden Your Landscape

Rocks gardens can look nice initially, but that can change quickly, especially if not prepared or maintained correctly. We rarely see entire properties transformed into rock gardens in North America.

However, many homeowners enjoy the style and natural touch rocks can add to their properties. Unfortunately, too many rock gardens are neglected, producing overgrown weeds. In some cases, you can barely see the rocks or stones. It’s essential to remember that you must maintain your landscape year after year, as it’s not a set-it-and-forget drop sheet for your home.

Benefits Of A Rock Garden

Why would you consider building a rock garden?

If a rock garden is prepared correctly and installed, it can be a relatively low-maintenance required addition to your landscape which is easy on the budget. Rocks also pair well with water, so if you think of installing a pond or waterfall, a surrounding rock garden may be a finishing touch.

A rock garden can also help improve drainage in your yard, which is always good. Depending on the slope of your property and if positioned correctly, it may even create a natural riverbed. Like plants, rock gardens are often a focal point because rocks don’t die and look great year-round.

The significant part about choosing this type of landscape is that you get to pick the rock garden layout that you prefer. If your property is not even like ours, you can still create a rock garden on slopes as long as you have some retaining wall to ensure the rocks don’t slide.

Rock Garden Preparation

How To Prep Your Rock Garden

The tools and materials you use to build your rock garden will contribute to the regular maintenance your garden will require. You can also use an edger to dig a deep edge that separates the garden from your lawn.

There won’t be a need to replace as many stones over time as they will settle on the edge. It also makes it easier to cut any surrounding grass while avoiding hitting any rocks or stones with your lawnmower blades. While landscape fabric is magical in preventing weeds from growing in your garden, it will not contain all.

I always use landscape fabric as it’s inexpensive and keeps our rock garden looking pristine.  

Laying down landscape fabric before adding soil to your garden will help, but weeds cannot grow through the material; they can still grow into the fabric. Seeds that enter your garden can still push their roots through it, whether by wind, rain, insects, or birds.

You will still see weeds but not nearly as many. When preparing the ground, you will want to try and choose good quality, weed-free soil.

Quality Products Go A Long Way With Weed Prevention

If you try to cut corners by buying cheap materials, buying good soil for a rock garden is not a corner you want to miss, especially if you plan to cover most of the park with stones or pebbles. Pulling weeds out between rocks is not only painful for your fingers, but you are not likely to get a shovel or trowel in without disturbing the natural look of your rock garden.

However, removing the roots of a weed buried in rocks is also often hard. The weed will continue to grow with a bigger and stronger root that will be even harder to remove. You can also use a garden rake (stiff rake) to level and smooth out the underlying soil. A large pry bar, a wrecking bar, and a fulcrum (woodblocks to use as pivot points) can be beneficial when moving and placing a boulder.

Moving large boulders is not a one-person job. They can be cumbersome, and while it may add an excellent focal point to your garden, it’s not worth throwing out your back. Once the soil is prepared, you will want to get any plants in the ground before laying any stone or mulch in the garden.

Rock Garden Plants

What plants can I use in a rock garden?

You could technically plant whatever you’d like, although some plants will look better and require less maintenance.

Perennials, succulents, and ornamental grasses are the best to use in a rock garden as you only have to plant them once and do not have to remove any stone you would have to if planting annuals every year.

Among many plants that would work well in a rock garden, junipers, rock cress, sedums, and hens & chicks are just a few.

Try to use various plants with different textures to complement the stones and rocks you have used to achieve a natural look.

When choosing plants, some may need to be divided to avoid growing too large and taking over your rock garden.

Dividing these plants will not be as easy as planting in a traditional garden, as the rocks can challenge this.

If you don’t mind moving the stones or rocks away so you can dig, then, by all means, go ahead, but keep in mind, that it will be more work for you.

Homemade Weed Killers

While pulling weeds by hand is a practical, natural approach to weed management, it is not very enjoyable and can be painful for your fingers when working around rocks and stones.

Since using herbicides is banned in many places, it doesn’t mean there isn’t something out there that you can use to rid the pesky weeds that may pop up in your rock garden.

Depending on your garden’s design and the materials you choose, mechanically removing the weeds with a hoe or a trowel will not be easy to maintain a weed-free rock garden.

Although strange to use, Cornmeal is called the birth control of sources.

Sprinkling cornmeal over your garden can be used as a pre-emergent herbicide as it prevents the germination of all seeds.

Not just the seeds from weeds, but make sure you are not spraying around any seeds planted in your gardens, including your vegetable garden.

Boiling Water Weed Protection

Hot boiling water is pretty self-explanatory.

Take a kettle of boiling water and pour it on the weeds, careful not to burn your feet.

The water will scald the leaves, and the roots as the water absorb the soil.

Homemade Weed Killer Recipe

The vinegar dish soap weed killer is a top-rated Homemade Weed Killer recipe.

This recipe claims to kill pesky weeds, which is worth a shot if it works.

A homemade weed-killer recipe such as this contains simple household ingredients.

Although I successfully used it on our lime tree, it’s not a robust homemade weed killer infested with bugs.

How To Make Homemade Weed Killer

1-gallon vinegar

1 cup of salt

1 tbsp Dawn dish soap

I know firsthand that vinegar works well to kill weeds by clogging the leaves’ pores and preventing photosynthesis, eventually killing it.

While the dish soap helps the vinegar stick to the plant instead of running off into the soil, I wouldn’t recommend adding salt.

Salt is toxic to our plants, trees, and soil; this mixture can work without it.

Also, this homemade weed killer requires the weed to be leafed out.

In short, this means it will not kill any weeds after pulling them out, and the root stays in the ground or if you have just cut the grass.

The leaves need to be present to be absorbed; the more surface area, the better.

Spraying them after cutting the grass or unsuccessfully pulling it out will only waste your money.

With both the boiling water and vinegar/dish soap methods, remember that it didn’t kill the weed the first time you doused it doesn’t mean it isn’t working.

Maintaining A Rock Garden

While the general idea behind a rock garden is to add a natural look to your property, weeds are unsightly. If you’re unsure about building a rock garden, have a professional do the landscape work.

There’s no sense in paying twice for a project if you’re worried about the outcome. Weed prevention is a significant issue when planning your rock garden, so don’t miss it.

A rock garden with weeds isn’t the natural effect you were likely aiming to achieve. Inevitably, there will always be weeds, but by being one step ahead, we can control how big of a problem we allow them to be.