Rock gardens are fairly permanent structures, so avoid placing them in spots where there are manhole covers or underground pipes that may need to be accessed.
Remove a few inches of the topsoil. Mix in about six inches of gravel, rubble, broken bricks, pea shingle or coarse sand down. These materials will help your soil drain water more efficiently.
The fabric will allow water to penetrate but won’t allow weeds to grow through the fabric.
If you are worried about appearance, don’t worry—you will be laying a layer of topsoil and rocks down on top of the newspaper.
Support larger rocks with bricks or smaller stones.
Use weed-free topsoil. You may also want to use a topsoil that is 30% grit so that your soil drains well. If you are using topsoil repurposed from another area of the garden, it may not be weed-free.
Lower growing, clump-forming, smaller plants work well in rock gardens, so consider Alpines and Sedums, as these plants display well against rocks. There are many evergreen Alpines to choose from. Examples include Celmisia ramulosa, Dianthus, some perennial Penstemons, and Picea. It’s also common to incorporate small conifers; however an Acer (Japanese Maple) is a more attractive and elegant choice for providing some height and year-round visual interest.
Ideally your rock garden plants should spread slowly, so give your plants space to grow.
You may also find that ants can be a bit of a pest as they may set up their home in between your rocks. If you are alright with this, leave them be. If you’d rather not have them around, ant killer can be purchased at your local garden store.
