Garden Projects - Building a small rockery in a weekend on a budget

My Weekend Garden Rockery

my weekend garden rockery after 2 months

After collecting together all the rubble, rocks and plants this rockery was actually built from scratch in 2 days!

Before the rockery

I had a small area of soil, which was an odd shape, in between some of the concreted areas in the garden.  The previous owners must have used it as a planting area but there was no sign of any viable plants left.  When I got my new puppy he decided to use this area as a toilet and I needed to distract him from this.  Last year I planted this area with busy lizzy's which did look pretty but with a new puppy I didn't think that filling this area with flowers (for him to dig up and eat) would be a good idea!  

Around the garden I had quite a bit of hardcore and bricks as well as large stones so I decided to build a rockery.  It is the first time that I have built one from scratch and probably isn't the best looking rockery but I am pleased with it anyway.  It has used up a lot of rubble that we would have had to get rid of somehow.

the area before the rockery

As you can see, from the photo above, this area was quite ugly and nondescript.  It is a weed haven and the puppy has also used it as a toilet so I needed to stop this.

Building a rockery - the process

Firstly I had a hunt around the garden and collected all the old bricks for the structure of the rockery.  Then I looked for any large and small stones that would support the outer structure.  Afterwards I collected together any random garden and house ornaments that I thought would enhance the look of the rockery.  I had some leftover gravel from the front driveway project so this was perfect for a filler.

Once I had collected everything together I was able to envisage how large the rockery could be and make a rough design.  

The first job was to weed the whole area and I turned over the soil just to make sure it was clear as I didn't want any unwanted weeds popping up through my new rockery.  Then using the bricks I built a perimeter around the area as a base for the rockery.  I used soil from another part of the garden as a filler between the bricks.

Building the foundations for a small rockery

As you can see from the photo above, I mainly used the old bricks that I had together with some concrete slabs that were left over from some demolition work that we had done in the house.

Once I was satisfied with the size of the foundations (in other words, once I had used up all the garden rubble!) I was then able to cover the whole area with weed fabric.  This works well to hide the unsightly rubble and also I was able to create pockets in the fabric to contain the growing soil for the plants.

This is when I started adding some of the more attractive rockery stones to hold down the weed fabric.  Once all of the outer rockery stones were in place and felt fairly sturdy (I don't want them to roll off and hit the children!) I was then able to add the soil into the pockets and spaces that I had created for the plants.

Shopping for rockery plants

This was my favourite part as I love looking around garden centres for ideas.  I chose a mixture of perennials and annuals.  I wanted some perennials for all year round colour and the annuals I chose for some instant flowers and colours.

I chose to add some succulents, alpines, small flowering shrubs, hardy fuscias.  Then for instant colour I added lobelia, petunias and a few marigolds.

These were each planted around the rockery into the pockets of soil.  

Filling in the rockery

Once the flowers were planted I used gravel to fill in all the areas.  This covered up all the soil around the plants and hid the weed fabric between the rocks.  I also had some ornaments that I wanted to add to give the rockery a bit more interest.  

the new rockery after planting

I completed this around 2 months ago and have since added a few more ornaments and tweeked with it a little bit.  I found a fairy house garden ornament and put this on top of the rockery and now my children think it is a big fairy garden which is quite sweet (and it stops them messing around with it).  The puppy has also stopped using this area as a toilet thankfully!

the fairy garden rockery