How to Landscape Yards With Mostly Rocks & Weeds

Make a plan to include the steps of rock removal and relocating, weed removal, weed prevention, plant selection and plant locating. These are basic, but can be hard work if you're doing it alone. Look around your yard and determine what you're willing to eliminate, and what you'd like to add, such as trees, shrubs and flowers.

Finalize your plan with a sketch of how you want your yard to appear. Rock gardens, for example, may provide the solution to blending with what nature has given you. Look at Asian designs, taking your climate zone into consideration if you plan to install plants.

Dig out the rocks that are unsightly or in the way of where you want a plant. Remove as many as possible -- this can take some time and is difficult work, but is often necessary for planting. Relocate the rocks with your wheelbarrow to create a pile for future use. Don't worry about small pebbles, as they may actually help with drainage.

Lay black plastic sheets over the heavily weeded areas. If it's your entire yard, and the yard is very large, you may need to also use a non-toxic weed solution. Allow the plastic to rest on the ground above weed sprouts. A good time to do this is from early spring to summer, when weeds first expose themselves. Leave the plastic on for a month.

Pull up the plastic and lay landscape fabric over the areas you want to plant, as well as areas where you will install select rocks, large feature stones, pebbles, sand or wood chips. This will hugely minimize the weed problem by placing the various materials atop the fabric. Create paths from wood chips or pea gravel around or through a sand garden or planting beds. Use at least 2 to 3 inches of the various materials on top of the fabric.

Make narrow or tiered raised beds to plant vegetables, herbs, perennials and annuals. These warm up faster than the ground and are very easy to weed.

Plant ground covers and vining plants if you prefer those to pebbles or sandscapes. These work well on hard-to-manicure hills and slopes, and ground covers can replace ugly lawns altogether.

Plant the trees, shrubs and showcase plants according to your plan. Water the plants in well. You don't need to water anywhere that is only sand, wood or pebbles. (Even nominal use of plants will require attention to soil mixes, fertilizers and watering, but rock garden plants will typically requires less than attention, unless you choose something exotic.)

Edge walkways or planting areas with the rocks you removed. If you don't have enough rocks, work them into a few specific areas, or place them around a small water feature.