What rock gardening involves

Most of the work happens once, at the start. You strip the turf, pile up a soil mix that is at least half sand and gravel, and set each stone with a third of it buried. After that the hobby becomes slow and small-scale: planting into gaps, spreading gravel around the plant necks, pulling the odd weed with a narrow tool, and watching what each plant does through the seasons. A session is an hour or two on your knees, and a finished bed asks for about that much a week in spring and far less in summer. The plants come from mountains and dry rocky places, so they want sun, sharp drainage and lean soil. Rich compost and regular watering, the things most garden plants enjoy, are what kill them.

Two red and green hens and chicks rosettes growing out of pale gravel — Rosettes rooted in a gravel top-dressing

Build your first rockery

What you can build in your first month

A door-sized rockery

Five to seven stones on a low mound of gritty soil, planted with hardy rosettes and mat-forming stonecrops, then finished with gravel.

A gravel scree pocket

A square yard of soil dug out a foot deep, refilled with the gritty mix and top-dressed, for the plants that hate wet roots most.

A planted crevice between two stones

Two rocks set an inch apart with a rosette wedged into the gap, which is the smallest version of the whole craft.

An alpine trough

One frost-proof container with a miniature landscape of stones and rosettes, plus a sown pot of alpine seed waiting for spring, if you take the Alpine gardening direction.

A labeled plant map

A sketch of the bed with every plant's name on it, so you know what the bare patch is when something dies back for winter.

A pink-flowered creeping plant trailing across cracked gray limestone

Choosing and setting stone

One kind of stone, sunk by a third

One kind only

A rockery built from a single type and color of stone looks like an outcrop. Mixed stone looks like a pile, however carefully you place it.

Local is best

Stone quarried nearby matches the landscape and costs less, since most of the price is trucking. Ask the yard what comes from within the state.

Weathered and angular

Rough, pitted, flat-sided pieces lock together and age quickly. Smooth river cobbles roll, leave no crevices and never look settled.

Fewer, bigger rocks

Three stones you can barely move do more than twenty you can carry in one hand. Spend most of the stone budget on the two largest.

Buried, not perched

A stone sitting on top of the soil looks dropped there and heaves in frost. Sunk by a third, it stays put and keeps the roots under it cool and damp.

How it is sold

Yards price landscape stone by the pound or ton and will usually let you hand-pick. A small bed needs 500 to 800 pounds, and delivery often costs as much as the stone.

Plants that forgive a first rockery

Hens and chicksTight rosettes that spread by offsets and survive in a thimble of soil. They are the best first plant for a narrow crevice and are hardy to zone 3.
Low stonecropsMat-forming sedums cover bare gravel in a season and root from any broken piece. Give them the edges, where they will not swamp slower plants.
Creeping thyme and rock cressFlat mats that spill over a stone's edge and flower in spring, sold in small pots at most garden centers.
Dwarf dianthus and moss phloxCushion plants with a big flush of flowers in late spring. Shear them lightly after bloom to keep them tight.
Small bulbsSpecies tulips, crocus and dwarf iris planted in fall come up through the gravel before anything else is awake.
A dwarf coniferOne slow evergreen that grows an inch or two a year gives the bed a shape in winter and a sense of scale beside the cushions.
Check the tagBuy plants rated at least one zone colder than yours, and pass on anything described as vigorous, spreading fast or good for filling large areas.

Find your zone

USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map Free zip code lookup for the zone number printed on plant tags

A slope of loose gray stones with small blue and orange flowers growing between them

Three ways to build one

Mound, crevice or trough

Rockery or scree bedThe classic mound with stones grouped like an outcrop and gravel between them. It forgives rough stonework, holds the widest range of plants, and is what the base kit builds.

Start here

Pick the sunniest spot that never holds a puddle and mark a bed about 4 by 6 feet with a hose. Then visit a stone yard and choose five to seven rocks of one kind, the largest about as big as you can roll.

Crevice gardenFlat slabs set on edge an inch or two apart, with plants rooting down the narrow gaps. It drains faster and stays cooler than a mound, uses the same kit, and needs more care in the stonework.

Start here

Look through photos of finished crevice gardens before you buy stone, because this style needs flat slabs rather than rounded rocks. Ask the stone yard for a quarter ton of thin flagstone offcuts in one color.

NARGS crevice gardens

Alpine gardeningGrowing true high-mountain plants such as saxifrages, gentians and drabas, most often in a trough where you control the soil mix exactly. It fits a patio or balcony and adds a container, pumice and seed to the kit.

Start here

Start with one trough on a sunny patio. Cover the drain hole with mesh, fill it with half pumice and half gritty soil, wedge in two or three small stones, and plant a few rosettes from the base kit. Then sow a pot of alpine seed and leave it outside for the winter.

NARGS local chapters

Open a direction for its first step. The rockery and the crevice garden use the base kit as it is. The button under Alpine gardening adds the trough, pumice and seed to the kit list, and pressing it again takes them back out.

See crevice gardens being built

NARGS crevice gardens Photo galleries of crevice gardens under construction and finished, including trough-sized ones

Moving stone without getting hurt

Have the ground marked

Call 811 or use your state's online form a few days before digging. The service is free and marks buried gas, power and cable lines.

Roll and lever, do not lift

Walk a heavy stone end over end, slide it on a plank, or lever it with a long steel bar. Lifting from the ground with a bent back is how most rockery injuries happen.

Protect hands and feet

Wear leather gloves and sturdy closed boots whenever stone is moving, and keep fingers out from under a rock as it settles.

Work across a slope

Stand uphill of or beside a stone you are rolling, never below it, and keep children and pets clear until every stone is bedded.

Know your limit

Anything over about 100 pounds is a two-person job. Ask the stone yard to place the largest pieces with their loader when they deliver.

Before you dig

Call 811 Free utility marking before you dig, with each state's notice period

What trips beginners up

It looks bare at first

Small plants in a sea of gravel are how every good rock garden starts. Mats and cushions take two or three seasons to knit together.

Some plants will die

Even experienced growers lose alpines to a wet winter or a humid summer. Note what failed, check the drainage there, and try a tougher plant.

The heavy work is all up front

Building takes one or two tiring weekends. Upkeep after that is light, so do not judge the hobby by the first two days.

Soil that is too rich

Compost, manure and fertilizer make rock plants grow soft and rot. Keep the mix lean and gritty and never feed.

Weed fabric under the gravel

It blocks self-sown seedlings and offsets, traps water at the neck of the plants, and shows through within a year. Use a deeper gravel layer instead.

Stones dotted evenly

Rocks spaced like raisins in a bun look artificial. Group them, leave open scree between groups, and bury them deeper than feels natural.

Thugs and overwatering

One fast spreader will bury its neighbors by the second summer, and a sprinkler schedule set for a lawn will rot the rest. Plant slow growers and water by hand.

A year of upkeep

Spring

Clear winter debris, press back any plants that frost has lifted, and top up thin gravel. This is the main flowering season and the best time to add new plants.

Summer

Water deeply but rarely, in the morning, and only in dry spells. Trim spent flowers from the cushions and pull weeds while they are small enough to come out of a crevice whole.

Fall

Plant small bulbs, take offsets from the rosettes to fill gaps, and rake fallen leaves off the bed every week so nothing sits wet on the plants.

Winter

Leave it alone. Cold rarely kills these plants but wet does, so a pane of glass or clear plastic propped over the fussiest ones keeps the rain off without warming them.

Purple grape hyacinths flowering in the gap between two granite boulders — Small bulbs in flower between two boulders

Where to learn more

Rock garden societies

Local chapters hold plant sales where members sell seedlings you will not find in stores, usually for a few dollars, and their seed exchanges list thousands of species.

Public rock gardens

Many botanic gardens keep an alpine house or rock garden. Visit in April or May and photograph the combinations and the stonework you like.

Free reading online

Society websites and forums carry years of growers' diaries, construction photos and plant portraits, searchable by plant name.

Specialist nurseries

Mail-order alpine nurseries describe the conditions each plant needs in more detail than a garden center tag, and are worth reading even before you order.

Societies and free reading

Why the kit looks like this

Stone is the biggest cost and it is the one thing to buy locally, because shipping rock costs more than the rock. Everything else here is the supporting cast: a shovel to strip turf and mound soil, sand and gravel to make the mix drain, gloves and a long bar for moving stone safely, and narrow hand tools that fit between rocks where an ordinary trowel and hoe do not. Bagged sand and gravel are convenient for a first small bed. For anything larger, a bulk delivery from the same yard that sells the stone is far cheaper. The plants are listed as starter sets, and a society plant sale will add to them for very little. The Alpine gardening lines are extra and only for the trough direction.

Mounds of yellow flowers spilling over a stacked stone garden wall — Yellow flowers spilling over stacked stone

Build the rockery

The first line is the stone, which comes from a local yard and is not something you order online. For the rest, compare the options on each line, then set your tiers and check out from the kit panel. Clicking a card selects it there. The tools, sand, gravel and plants start in the kit. The trough, pumice and seed join when you switch on Alpine gardening, and the plant labels start out of it.

Landscape stone from a local stone yard

Essential · Stone

The rocks are the garden. A first bed needs 500 to 800 pounds of one type of stone in mixed sizes, which is far too heavy to ship.

Not sold on Amazon

Not sold on Amazon. Look for a landscape supply or stone yard that lets you hand-pick weathered, angular stone of one kind, priced by the pound or ton. Expect roughly $60 to $200 for a small bed, plus delivery if you cannot haul it yourself.

Round-point digging shovel

Essential · Digging and building

Strips the turf, loosens the subsoil, mixes the soil and digs the seat for every stone. A pointed blade cuts sod where a flat one bounces off.

budget

Round Digging Shovel Garden Shovel Spade Fiberglass Handle 58 inches

5.0(10)

$35.99

Rock Gardening

What rock gardening involves

Build your first rockery

Choosing and setting stone

Plants that forgive a first rockery

Three ways to build one

Moving stone without getting hurt

What trips beginners up

A year of upkeep

Where to learn more

Why the kit looks like this

Build the rockery

Landscape stone from a local stone yard

Round-point digging shovel

Coarse sand for the soil mix

Gravel for the mix and top-dressing

Narrow transplanting trowel

Leather work gloves

Hardy hens and chicks starter plants

Steel digging and pry bar

Crevice weeding tool

Mat-forming stonecrop plants

Garden kneeling pad

Frost-proof trough or bowl planter

Horticultural pumice

Alpine and rock plant seeds

Weatherproof plant labels