A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Banter Hall Gardener's Chat Got rocks????

Sorry you weren't here to "collect" Jiffy.

Years ago my town was originally called Hardscrabble. Well it's no wonder. As Mark dug out the place for the pool it was chock FULL of rocks!!!! Tons and tons of rocks! So I had the job of picking them all up and filling the wheelbarrow with them.

Here he is hard at work! He worked on this ALL day from morning til night....like an engineer with his levels and tools and rototiller he borrowed from the neighbor. He wants it done right the first time. This is actually smaller than it is, after he finished this off he decided to make it 2 feet bigger towards the deep end....so he had a bunch of dirt to dig out again! Then he brought his truck up in the yard and ran up over it all to compress it down.



It looks a lot better than that now, and it's level---we just need sand tomorrow.

Well---AFTER---he dumped the rocks in the weeds around the side of the shed I had the bright idea to go get them and start a little rock border around that bed you all saw that I was digging out in the "What did you do in the Garden today" topic.

Athena was so great, she helped me carry all the small rocks over and we played around forever with them to get them "right".



She loved it and was all proud of herself. Tomorrow I'm going to have Mark pick me up a few bags of small rocks so I can cover the dirt with them. I think that will be nice. I planted Cosmos in there for now....3 of them. They get so tall and bushy that it will fill that in and up very quickly.

Bless Mark and all his hard work.--not to negate yours and Athena's hard work---I am sure all 3 of you worked very hard---

and the pool project is coming right along---for sure---

Well I worked "some", but he worked pretty much the entire day...taking wheelbarrow full after wheelbarrow full of dirt, rocks, and sod away.....

He can't wait to start tomorrow....tomorrow will be set up day.

The rocks don't look that great I know, but I thought it was just too wasteful to let them all sit in the weed filled ditch near the shed.

BTW, Athena doesn't seem to understand that the pool water needs to heat up...she thinks she can get right in it. When I told her she couldn't she told me to take cups of hot water out there.

Great pics...Loz, you're running out of room in your yard

I know!

There was a better place for the pool, but it was too near the front of the house and the sidewalk and Mark was worried about teens throwing stuff into it as they passed......so we moved it down there and it's a little cramped near the pond but it'll do.

Mark's out getting sand and gravel!

i like it, and i'll be by to get the rocks in november, they'll keep

The first thing I said when I saw the wheelbarrow chock full of rocks was WOW---Jiffy would love this.

There are still a few left down in the weeds....by then the weeds should be dead.........and I'll keep my eye out for more.

Mark forgot to get my smaller rocks, so I'll get them tomorrow.

I've got these kind of rocks everywhere so I started using them to outline flower beds and to change the direction of water.

Cool Sheri! I never thought much about using rocks before, but since we found so many I figured why not use them.....

sheri, you are closer than loz, i may come get rocks from you first that's cool the way you have them lined up.

That looks really nice, Loz! I like the colors of your rocks - ours are mostly grey here.

Sheri - your rocks are interesting - any idea what they are?

OMG, I love rocks!!!! I garden with rocks all the time, I have some gardens that are just rocks, no plants at all, lol.

Here's one of my latest rock projects, I have several projects going at once here.

I started this one last year, The rock part is done, now I just have to plant it. It's going to have herbs and edibles. I have a big herb garden, but this is right by the back door.



I added worm compost to the soil, so there are a ton of melon seedlings coming up.

I've got loads of rocks. They look like loz's rocks right now but that's because they are covered in clay. once I rinse them off I'll know more of what they look like. I want to do something like melcon6 has done but I want it to go clear across my front yard from driveway to northern boundry. I'm thinking it will be really cool. Hope so anyway. And Jiffy I'm sure I'll have plenty left for you if you want some.

thanks tammy! how far off i95 are now at the new place?

Jiffy, I'm about 35 minutes from 95! However, you'd have to bring me a Georgia rock in exchange for some Maine rocks. I've got a couple rocks from California, Hawaii, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Vermont, Massachusetts and Canada. People bring me rocks and I gather them wherever I go.

Here's another recent rock project, a little set of steps.

This first picture shows my method for moving some of the bigger, heavier rocks. I stole the idea from the Romans. The board and pipes.





See the rock on the left side of the steps?? That one was placed in the #3 position when my daughter came home and said it was all wrong! So, I made her and her boyfriend help me replace it. It moved a lot easier with the three of us !

I've done some more work down there today. I'll get a new picture of it tomorrow.

mel, i'd have to go to western/northern ga to get you rocks. we don't have rocks here on the coast. none, zip, zilch, zero, nada. which is why i am envious of rocks and grab them when ever i can find them "free"

Cool stuff Mel, I like your steps that you've made---that's neat.

Got some river rocks today at Walmart so I could fill in the other rocks.....Athena just loves it because it's something we did together. Nothing to big or too fancy, but I like it.

Our soil here is very clayish like Tammy's....and just FULL of rocks. You can't dig anywhere without hitting a rock.

that looks as good as mel's steps! I'm glad you get to keep it weeded though. and look at miss priss. she is so grown up!

She's a beanpole.....and so tanned right now. A mouthy beanpole at times. Although she's getting a bit better with age.

I liked the river rocks in there....Hopefully the weeds won't be TOO bad...we'll see....I could always get another bag of river rocks and make it a thicker barrier. Cosmos aren't exactly plants you'd expect to see in a bed like that, more likely sedum and things, but I have TONS of Cosmos growing and I'm running out of spots to put them. And they are my favorites.

Jiffy I'm about 4 hours off of I-95 now. That was one of the things I wanted when I moved. To be in a location that wasn't likely to be built up in my life time. I'm out in the country now and loving it. But getting to me is harder than it was. Maybe I'll have to travel down to your place instead. I've never stopped in Georgia although I've watched television programs about it on the travel channel.

Great pics everyone...I am working on a rock garden at the moment. It is taking me forever though because I need help lifting the large slabs. DH said projects like this aren't supposed to be planned along with surgeries

Wish you could come visit me...I'd sent you home with plenty of rocks, slab stones and others. We live a 15 minute drive from a crush rock quarry. The rocks there are grey, blue, red and purplish. I must take a pic of a few I have...DH hauled there two years ago when he was working for a contractor and took me home a rock of each colour.

That's cool Tam......rocks are growing on me. Post some pics later on.

I don't know what kind of rocks we have but I have them everywhere. They're mostly big, white rocks.

We've got lotsa' rocks - I use them all.

Sometimes they come up through the soil to the surface and I get rocks I didn't even know I had.

That's how I started my rock garden - I was turning over soil on a slope, figuring I'd seed it with grass - I found all these rocks. So I thought, ok - you've always wanted to start a rock garden - this is it!

My dad is a farmer so I go over to his house and get rocks out of the huge rock pile. That is the border around one of my flower gardens. They all came straight out of the corn field! It is a cheap and easy way to make a border and I like the looks of it!

that's how I got my slate rock. A local farmer told us we could have it if we picked it out of the field. DH wished he wouldn't of told me that.

I bet!

O.k. this is what I'm working on. It'll look better when those plants finally grow, most are new bulbs and plant slips. I have big slabs of rock to add to the right side....maybe I can convince DH to help this week end.

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i would say i'm jealous, but i would not trade wearing shorts at Christmas for any amount of money or any sized rock

WOW beautiful slate stones. verry pretty garden!
i was driving down to the arbuckles and getting rocks from alongside the road, cuz all we have around here is sandstone. hubby found out and said, you can't just take that stuff! and i said, who's going to stop me, the Rock Police? the rocks just fall off the cliff faces down there and sometimes they land on the road! i think i am doing everybody a service by picking them up! can you imagine archeologists 400 years from now, finding our gardens and going, wow, why are those rocks here???? they aren't from around here!