If you were a homeowner in the early 18th century, your front yard probably didn’t feature a swath of green lawn like you see today. Most homes back then featured a small garden at the most. It wasn’t until the mid-18th and early 19th century that lawns started appearing in European landscaping among the wealthy. Soon the idea of a lawn started resembling success, and it became a physical manifestation of the American Dream of home ownership. Homes pushed back from the street, gardens moved to the side or backyard, and the open space in front was covered with grass. Having a well-maintained lawn was a sign to others that you had the time and/or the money to support this attraction.
Though keeping your yard well-maintained is still seen as part of being a good neighbor, the prevalent use of lawns is giving way to yard designs with more texture, color, and sustainability. Many front yard landscaping ideas with rocks, mulch, wood, stone, water, and indigenous plants are beautiful and easy to maintain. This article will hone in on how you can use rocks to transform your front yard.
What are the benefits of rock landscaping?
If you have grass in your front yard, then you are probably familiar with all the care it needs to be well maintained, let alone thrive. Fertilizing, watering, mowing, and edging is part of a cyclical to-do list that sometimes works—and sometimes doesn’t.
Rock landscaping, on the other hand, is much easier to maintain. In fact, it has little to no maintenance whatsoever. The wide varieties of rock out there make it easy to match your home, and you don’t need to worry about them spreading haphazardly or dying off because of some disease. Below are a few other benefits of using rocks in your front yard landscape design.
- Doesn’t attract pests. Even organic mulch, like wood chips, can become a haven for some less-than-welcome little devils that you don’t want sitting next to your house. Ahem, termites.
- Doesn’t wear down. If you use rock as part of your walkway, you won’t need to worry about the path breaking down. Paths made out of ground cover, vines, and grasses, on the other hand, can look ragged the more children, pets, and adults traipse over them.
- Long-lasting. Though erosion can definitely break down rocks over time, you won’t need to replace rock mulch nearly as often as organic mulch, like wood chips that start to break down as soon as they are exposed to the elements.
- Improves drainage. Where soil becomes saturated with water after a rainfall, potentially leading to pooling or even flooding, the gaps between rocks allow for adequate water drainage.
- Saves resources. If you opt to use rock instead of grass, you will save yourself the cost of maintaining a yard—like fuel for a lawn mower, money to hire a lawn care service, fertilizer, personal time, and more.
What are the different types of rocks that can be used in front yard landscaping?
As mentioned in the paragraph above, a perk to using rocks in your yard is the variety you have to choose from. Where your grass is—hopefully—green and mowed to the same height as every else’s lawns, rock can range in color, size, texture, and arrangement. We’ll cover a few below and how they can be used.
- River Rock: pathways, dry creek beds, mosaics set in cement, landscape edging, water feature bottoms, xeriscaping, brightening shaded areas below trees, lining a fence, rock garden, control erosion, mulch
- Flagstones: walkway, retaining wall, border around a water feature, fire pit, pool “deck,” garden bed edging, stepping stone, paver patio
- Boulders: rock retaining wall, garden wall, focal point, grouped together in a cluster, seating, steps/levels, fire pit
- Pea Gravel: patio, pathway, dog run, high-traffic locations, filler around boulders or containers, borders, driveway, dry creek bed, mulch
- Lava Rock: pathways, stone borders, mulch for flower beds, firepits, fillers around containers or stones,
- Brick Chips: paths, mulch, edging, filler around boulders or containers
What are some creative ideas for using rocks in front yard landscaping?
There are many DIY landscaping ideas that you can pull off on your own, especially ones using rocks. Rock will bring color and texture wherever you put it. In doing so, you’ll add an element of interest that will draw the eye rather than deflect it. Below are several ideas to help get the creative juices flowing.
Dry River Bed
If your front yard has a slight slope, then breaking up your lawn with a dry river bed is a beautiful option. Larger rocks can be placed along the edges with pea gravel or river rocks filling in the bed. You can also use boulders in the middle, like rocks sticking up from a river, or you can use large rocks or flagstones to create your own “bridge” or stepping stones.
Focal Point
Rocks do a great job creating a focal point when you need something to break up the yard. For example, several boulders grouped together in the middle of a lawn can draw the eye, and you can use a mixture of smaller rocks and plants to fill in the gaps or create a border around them.
Borders
Having clean lines that separate a flower bed from your lawn is a great way to increase curb appeal. Use small boulders, flagstones, or a strip of pea gravel to separate the flowers from the grass. Rocks also look great when surrounding the base of trees or shrubs.
Rock Retaining Wall
If you have a slanted yard, you can break it up into tiers by using a retaining wall. Stack paving stones or boulders as an alternative to cement or brick. You can also break the rock wall into two sides if you want to add a couple of flat-sided boulders as steps in the middle.
Seating
One of the original reasons lawn was incorporated in the United States was to imitate the large, grassy parks that were becoming more popular. A lawn was seen as a potential gathering place without needing to stroll through the house to the backyard. Rock can be used to create seating around the base of a tree, as a bench in a flower garden, around a fire pit, or up against a retaining wall. If you like the idea of gathering with others in your front yard on a warm summer evening, then having some natural seating will beautify your yard and make it easier for such gatherings to happen, impromptu or planned.
What common issues might people encounter when using rocks in front yard landscaping?
Blowing Away: One issue people may run into when they use rock in their landscape is when smaller rocks scatter, either in a storm or by traffic, when used as a path. Though using rock-like pea gravel is one of many cheap landscaping ideas, you must make sure you lay it right. To combat this, you should put a base layer of larger crushed rock on your pathway before covering it with the smaller rock and use plastic or metal edging to keep the rocks contained in their designated area. When used as mulch, wet the area you wish to cover with at least one inch of water to help the rocks settle, and use a plastic or metal edging to keep the rocks contained.
Uncomfortable: Another issue is that not all rock is comfortable to walk on. If creating a walking path with rock, consider using flagstones or larger rocks as stepping stones and filling in the gaps with pea gravel, lava rock, or brick chips.
Heavy: It goes without saying that boulders are heavy. There’s no getting around it, so before you place boulders in your yard, think through the design carefully. You may want to hire a landscaping company to help you since they will have special tools to help them move heavy rocks and large amounts of smaller rocks if necessary.
Difficult to Move: Smaller rocks look gorgeous wherever you lay them out, but if they don’t look the way you want, you might need to hire help moving them. Lots of little rocks are difficult to move due to their weight and the amount of time it takes to pick them up. Even if you’re careful, you could still find leftover pebbles in the area for weeks, months, or even years. If you’re going to lay down small rocks, make sure that’s where you want them to go, so you don’t have to redo it.
What is the maintenance and upkeep of a front yard landscape with rocks?
Low maintenance front yard landscaping is something that’s growing in popularity, and rock is one of the easiest landscaping components to maintain because it doesn’t break down quickly and won’t lose its color. In addition, most rocks won’t blow away in a storm. In fact, many homeowners looking to sell will implement hardscaping, or the use of non-living elements like rocks in their landscaping, to increase curb appeal and make the yard a little easier to maintain.
Vacation homes are a great place to implement hardscaping since families probably don’t want to be doing yard work while on vacation. It’s also great for rental properties, so landlords won’t need to work as hard to maintain the yard or pay a company or one of the residents to do it.
Tips for Installing Rock in Your Front Yard
If we’ve convinced you to install some gorgeous rock on your front lawn, then yay! We’re so excited and hope that it turns out well. We want to provide you with some tips to help the experience be everything you want it to be.
Remember Color and Texture
Rock comes in so many different colors and textures, so make sure you know what you want before buying the first thing you see. Then, take a look at the color of your home and look at what is already in your yard. Where could you use some contrast and visual interest? You’ll be able to choose from the warm tones of sandstone, the black, gray, or red porous lava rock, and the smooth pink, gray, and green-tinged river rocks.
Accent rocks can also be used around your yard, whether they’re mixed in with other rocks or strategically placed in specific locations. One such accent rock is quartz which comes in white, pink, green, purple, yellow, and even clear to add decorative accents among your other yard features. Another option is marble chips or tiny bits of marble that would create a stark white contrast against the color already in your yard.
Use Multiple Varieties
Since there are so many different options when it comes to rocks, why not use several? Don’t think you have to stick to just one. For example, river rock may be a beautiful option if you want to create a dry river bed through your front yard, but it might not look as nice as a border to your flower beds. You can also vary the sizes of rocks you use. For example, a pathway could be made up of flagstone and pea gravel, or a focal point could include three large boulders surrounded by brick chips.
Be Prepared
Rock is often bought by the cubic yard, so you must measure the area you intend to fill before purchasing your materials. Keep in mind that you’ll probably need to dig down a bit to install rock rather than just putting rock on top of whatever is existing. Once the area is dug out and cleared, you’ll want to tamp down the dirt underneath so your rock doesn’t settle over time, causing you to add more rock to top it off later. You may also want to consider putting down some weed barriers like landscaping fabric, newspapers, or cardboard to keep the weeds under control.
We hope you found this article on front yard landscaping ideas with rocks to be helpful! What kind of rock would you like to use in your yard?