7 Tips to Add Landscape Boulders to Your Garden in Style!

Landscape boulders can offer your outdoor space some dramatic appeal if you want to add a striking natural feature to your property.

From calming Zen-inspired patterns to practical retaining borders and enormous stone monoliths, there are many creative ways to introduce a sense of scale and form to your yard.

Though it may seem radical to move a large stony boulder into your yard or design a whole garden around one that is already there, people have long been attracted to and revered these natural building blocks.

By their texture and beauty, it's easy to become enthralled with the exotic appeal of boulders as generations of weathering have left unique marks on boulders, exposing the minerals beneath the boulder surface.

Stone, whether soft sandstone, cool grey slate, or warm sandstone offers the perfect backdrop for verdant foliage. A touch of well-designed lighting can bring out the shades and create a great focal point in your garden.

Have a plan

If you want to landscape with boulders, you should consider your garden plan as a whole. Keep in mind that boulders are difficult to transport because of their size and weight. If you are unsure of how to move a rock securely, get guidance from an experienced landscaper or the landscape supply store where you made your purchase.

The boulders should be placed first due to their weight and the good focus points they create. Don't forget that employing boulders will also act as a kind of aesthetic anchor. As a result, positioning your garden and other landscaping elements around your stones makes sense.

 Another point to consider is that you want to bury your rocks at least a few inches into the dirt. If kids decide to climb upon and play around them, this will secure the boulders from rolling and causing injuries.

Burying your rocks a few inches deep wills also shield them from pressures and movements that could eventually cause them to break. A securely placed boulder also looks more natural. No massive rock is quietly resting on the ground. They take a seat. Some architects may bury the stones up to 25% below the earth's surface, depending on their size, weight, and soil composition.

Think levels

Boulder landscaping is one of the best ways to incorporate different levels into your landscape design because of the available range of sizes.

To set up and develop levels, you should first identify the various elements that add levels to your garden. These could include raised beds, a retaining wall, and other flora. If you are adding boulders of varying sizes, try to combine ones with similar dimensions and frame them with complementary elements such as your smaller landscape stones and vegetation to define the different levels.

Go large

First-time landscapers may shy away from adding large boulders to their property, but this is usually because they see them outside of a natural context. You’ll probably find that once you take the boulder home and put it in your garden, it looks a lot smaller in the broader context. 

A burst of color

Choose from calming ivory and off-white stones to shocking black rocks to brilliant yellow and red hues to relaxing gray or taupe tints accented by greens from lichen and moss to establish the mood and feel of your design. By employing boulders, you might unexpectedly increase the variety of colors in your surroundings. In addition, you can use stones to help you designate particular areas of your garden or landscape as calming or stimulating spots to appreciate because color inevitably affects the mood of a place.

In addition, moss- and lichen-covered boulders can come in a range of beautiful hues, including varied tones of green, gold, gray, brown, and even some orange.

These brand-new decorative landscaping boulders are sure to catch the attention of your visitor's thanks to their striking, eye-catching shades. Because they are naturally enriched with glistening mica mineral deposits, these magnificent stones can give dynamic color and flare just where you need them.

To make your landscape stand out, you may also design gorgeous focal points that are unique to your area or sparkling embellishments. These gorgeous stones are fantastic natural options for eye-catching embellishments, retaining walls, or water features.

Don't forget the lighting!

Boulders make great focal points for landscape lighting. To see what works, try different bulbs. A spotlight will have very different effects that a wide-angle floodlight. Boulders are generally best complemented by warm-up-lit lights which feel more natural, but of course, the choice is yours.

Texture is everything

Different sorts of boulders can have many different textures. You'll be amazed at the sheer variety of options available, from round and smooth to rough and angular.

Boulders can also have layers of texture that should be covered with aged limestone, moss boulders, lichen, or other plants.

For more advice on which textures work well together, ask an expert.

Follow the natural flow of your yard and home

Remember that your landscaping should complement and enhance the beauty of your home, so your design should strike a balance between the two. Consider the style and beauty of your home and the surrounding area when deciding on the placement of your boulders. Take visual cues from your home's architecture and landscape elements.

Why Should You Include Boulders in Your Yard?

We love good boulders for their ability to instantly transform any outdoor space and we have a hunch that you are already pretty set on including these impressive structures in your garden.

Boulders are a quick way to add some gravitas and sophistication to any yard, but if you’ve read this far, you already know that there are many factors to consider when choosing the right boulder (or boulders) for your outdoor space.

Depending on whether you are designing your whole yard from scratch or just want to add a zen corner, say, to your already beautiful garden, the whole process will go a lot smoother if you plan.

With such megalithic structures, you must be mindful of the size, texture, and colors you include to maintain a sense of seamlessness between your plants, your pathways, and your standing stones.

We know that it can all seem a bit overwhelming, but enlisting the help of a landscape designer can go a long way to help you grasp the basics of landscape design and help you create a holistic garden that makes the most of every aspect of your outdoor space, boulders included.

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