Landscape Ideas Using Stones

Pavement

• Broad, flat stones like sandstone or cut flagstones are ideal materials for pavement, such as patios, paths and driveways. You can build stone pavements using natural stones gathered from your property or cut stones from home improvement stores. When it comes to laying the stones, you have different options. You can dry-lay patios, drives or walks by excavating, laying the stones onto a bed of gravel and sand and then filling the cracks between stones with sand. In the same fashion, you can use mortar to fill the gaps between stones and screed mortar beds for more permanent installation.

Retaining Walls

• Stone walls made from irregular-shaped or flat stones serve to outline pathways and raised flower beds. Stone walls often are used as retaining walls to keep higher areas of soil from collapsing onto paths or garden areas or to eliminate steep slopes of grass. Like stone pavements, you can build stone walls using either dry-stacking methods or by mortaring the stones into place. If you dry-stack, try to fit the pieces of stone together according to their shapes and taper the wall as you built it higher. For mortared walls, leave larger gaps between stones and fill those gaps with mortar.

Landscape Edging

• Use small rocks and stones as landscape edging. Landscape edging defines the borders of flower gardens, drives and pathways to prevent damage to flowers, vegetation and pavement materials. To set landscape edging into place you can dig a trench or individual beds for the stones or simply set the stones into place on the surface of the ground.

Potted Plant Stands

• To enhance your flower garden and put to use large stones or boulders in your landscaping, try using those stones as potted plant stands. Set the large stones in the middle of a flowerbed or even alone in your yard. Position the stone with one flat side facing up and set a potted plant into place on the stone. Use several stones around your property to align walks and drives, just bear in mind you will have to mow around these stones later.