How should I care for my rock garden? Rock garden care and maintenance is like any other garden. You can use products like Xeroscaping and Pre-Emergence to make the job easier. "A rock garden is like any...
"A rock garden is like any garden," says Laddie Flock, owner of Natural Rock Formations, a company that has been in business for 17 years and has experience in all different styles and themes of rock gardens. Natural Rock Formations is one of the largest distributors of natural stone products on the Pacific coast and has been featured in many publications ranging from the Wall Street Journal to Landscape and Irrigation magazine. Their website can be found at www.natrok.com
Because rock gardens are just like any other garden, you will need to perform certain types of mainentance on it over the life of your garden. This maintenance includes weeding, watering, feeding and fertalizing, and clearing away any debris. If you have watering and lighting systems installed, you will also need to do maintenance on these, checking for leaks in your watering system or electrical problems in your lighting system. Changing burnt out bulbs would also be a form of garden maintenance if lighting is a component of your garden.
Flock says, "You certainly have to keeps the weeds out. There are certain processes and maintenance issues that if you plan for ahead of time, then your time in the garden as far as maintenance is dramatically decreased."
Flock describes a product that will help you keep your weeding to a minimum. "If you want one that is more reactive than the weeds, there is a component called 'Pre-Emergence' that you can simply spread on the ground. It creates a zone that doesn't allow the weed seeds to grow up. So, you have reduced your weeds dramatically. I don't think you can ever eliminate them. But, you can certainly reduce the amount of time that you spend pulling them out of the ground."
Flock also says, "There is a watering issue in rock gardens. That promotes what they call Xeroscapes."
Flock explained what a Xeroscape is by saying, "Xeroscapes use a drip for irrigation systems instead of overhead spray. No lawns require by relative comparison the enormous amount of water for the grasses and some of the plants. So, there are types of gardens that have more maintenance and types of gardens that have less maintenance."
You will also want to feed your plants plant food specific to the types of plants you have in your garden. Nurseries or other garden centers will be able to recommend the right types of food, and let you know how often you need to feed and fertalize your plants.
If you have plants that need to be protected from the cold in the winter, you will also need to invest in covers to keep them warm when your garden has gone dormant.
You can choose plants that will tie in with the amount of maintenance you want to put into your garden. Some people enjoy spending the afternoon weeding and performing other gardening maintenance, while others would rather not have to bother with at all.
Flock suggests, " If you go into nurseries and talk to them about the maintenance of a particular plant, they can recommend roses for example that have inherently a less number of pests."
