Buying Rockery Stones Online: 7 Questions To Ask Yourself

When it comes to decorating your garden area, there are few features that add as much enrichment to a space than rockery stones. They are a fantastic way of displaying your plants and constructing unique features in your outside space.

These versatile additions to a garden can be found in a diverse range of colours, styles, and types of rock so you can always find the perfect rockery stone to complement your existing landscape. There is a whole realm of possibility when you bring in rockery stones as a new element.

Rockery stones can be used for creating habitats in even small areas for wildlife and fish, building up stunning features that will transform spaces, or showing off and nurturing your plants. These are a great choice for all plants – sun-loving, shade-tolerant, alpines, shrubs, and perennials.

1. How many do you need?

You should assess the space that you have available and work out how many rocks you can fit into the area. However, to achieve a carefully crafted feature, you will need to be judicious in how many you choose.

Ideally, you want to balance the existing large features in your garden. You can do this by choosing just a few rockery stones to better exhibit your main feature or you can get a lot and incorporate your existing feature into more of a comprehensive landscape.

2. What size do you need?

Because you can find rockery stones in a variety of sizes, it’s important to know what you want for your garden before you begin browsing. In the same way you assessed how many you need, work out the sizes that you want.

Ideally, you want to balance these two measurements – for most outside areas, a larger number of smaller rocks or a smaller number of larger rocks is the general consensus. This means that you have a good balance between the dimensions and don’t risk your outdoor area looking either too patchy or too busy.

3. What colour will fit with your garden?

As with any rock choice, rockery stones come in a huge collection of colours. Decorative Gardens stocks rockery stones and rocks in a range of 12 different colourings so you can always be sure to find the perfect shade for your garden.

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Forest Green

This evergreen shade is ideal for botanical gardens to bring out the rich green tones of your plants and make them pop for the eye. These will add an aesthetic dynamic that can transform the appearance of your plants as they are and build on their colour.

Green rockeries are also perfect for layering rockery colours. They match well with cool tones, like grey and silver, or contrasting notes like beige.

Highland Grey

Silver hues like grey work well with water features and minimalist shrubs or succulents because of their neutral and subtle colouring. They are great for a lot of outdoor features because their colouring doesn’t weather and often changes depending on the climate – bleaching lighter in the sun and turning darker in the rain and dew.

Black

For something bold and nouveau, black rockeries are the way to go. These dark statement rocks contrast anything bright exceptionally well, from plants to water features to smaller stone decorations.

Because of their dark colouring, black rockeries also absorb much more heat and can prove useful for a variety of gardening purposes as well as a warm seat to enjoy while you spend time in your garden.

Arctic White

On the other end of the statement spectrum is the ice white rockery. These work incredibly well when paired with black rocks to create a unique bichrome pattern.

When deciding the colour, these are ideal for dark coloured plants, bonsai, and pathway edging.

Coral

These are a much warmer shade of rock than the other colour varieties and can give your garden space a rustic or traditional aesthetic, perfect for anyone looking for something comforting to spend time in.

Coral stones work amazingly well in water features and fish-safe coral rocks like river boulders look stunning in fishponds. Because of their warm, rustic colours, coral rocks take on a beautiful glossy sheen when wet and can make any water feature a show-stopping feature in your outdoor space.

4. How far away is the site delivering from?

Due to the inevitable weight of large rockery stones and rocks, it’s important to check the online site you’re ordering from isn’t too far away. Ideally, you want to evaluate the cost of shipping from their main base to your property and compare this against other online sites.

5. How much character does the rock have?

You might have read that featureless rocks, like granite and ironstone, should be avoided. It’s true that they have less character than rocks with good strata, mineral veins, and unique shaping. However, depending on the design plan for your garden, they may be the ideal fit.

It’s crucial to inspect photos online of the rocks you’re considering and imagine them placed around your garden. Will your rockeries be the main feature in your outside space? In which case, choose a rock such as hard limestone or sandstone. Are you planning on your rockery complementing other features? In which case, perhaps you would be better using gabion or granite.

6. Does the online shop naturally source its rocks?

Rocks are a non-renewable resource because there is only a finite amount. Due to their size, they can rack up big carbon footprints during transportation and prove environmentally unfriendly. Research the online shop you’re browsing before you purchase from there to check that rocks are naturally sourced and the shop operates sustainably.

7. Are they high-quality rocks?

While researching through the online shop, you should also check the quality and durability of the rocks being offered. Some low-quality rocks can require a great deal of maintenance and upkeep while others, such as the high-quality rocks stocked by Decorative Gardens, are made to last.