Decorating plots is becoming more and more popular every year. And more and more often you can find such material as stone in the garden - new ideas for summer cottages are very often implemented using either a natural or artificial version. If you decide to transform the cottage, but do not know how to do it, this review will tell you several interesting solutions that you can implement yourself without significant material costs.
In the photo: stones will help create the most colorful compositions that will delight the eye for many years.
Types of stone
Today, the following types of stone are most popular for site decoration:
- marble;
- granite;
- river and lake stone;
- sandstone;
- limestone;
- basalt.
You can also find dolomite and shell rock. Certain breeds are rarely used due to their high cost.
What can be made of stone
All kinds of decorative fences can be made of stone - for garden paths, flower beds, flower beds. In this case, the material can be laid with or without cement mortar.
The original idea is a dry stream. The homeland of such a decorative element is Japan. Here is an instruction for such a design of a dacha with stones: to create a dry stream, the first thing to do is to think over the shape of the riverbed and dig a corresponding depression.
The next step after leveling the surface and laying the geotextile layer is the laying of stones, and small pebbles or pebbles are laid out on the bottom, and larger stones are placed at the edges.
Geotextiles are needed to prevent the growth of weeds. For more similarity with a real stream, the stone material can be painted in appropriate shades.
Various hand-made stone crafts in the country are also popular. These can be figurines depicting mushrooms, animals, heroes of fairy tales and epics. Coloring of such homemade products is allowed.
In addition, the stone itself can serve as the basis for the drawing. Most importantly, remember that you need to use weather-resistant paints so that the brightness of the image remains at least 2-3 years.
You should also pay attention to the stone slides and flower beds in the country. This is the most common type of landscape composition. The arrangement of such decorative elements is quite simple. To do them, you do not need special skills and abilities.
You can also lay out a network of stone paths. The material can be stone slabs, cobblestone, pebbles, crushed stone, gravel, hewn stone - it all depends on your imagination.
Gabions in the garden: stylish, beautiful, functional
We recently mentioned gabion structures, which have become incredibly popular recently in the field of landscape design and interior decoration, in our dacha blog. Those who are able to appreciate the flight of engineering thought, which is more than 100 years old, and prefer non-standard solutions, will like the ideas of gabions.
River pebbles of all sizes and mesh metal structures are all you need to embody the most unusual summer cottage experiments.
With their help, you can build a lot of useful, convenient and creative things, starting with pre-fabricated partitions that delimit the functional areas in your summer cottage, retaining walls and steps, to solid garden furniture and decorating borders around flower beds and ponds.
Gabion structures filled with rounded pebbles are ideal for the construction of fences and fences. They do not require fiddling with mortar and the construction of a solid foundation, they are wonderfully combined with wood trim and can be used on areas with difficult terrain, when there is a need to strengthen crumbling slopes.
Fashionable stone garden
Creating a garden of stones is a rather time-consuming process. This is because it involves cutting the elements. Stone gardens come in all shapes and sizes. Proper surface preparation is essential. A stone garden is a flat area covered with pebbles or fine gravel. Instead of trees, stones are placed on it.
The seeming randomness of the placement of cobblestones and boulders should not deceive you. The entire stone ensemble obeys certain laws, which are based on Japanese philosophy.
River pebbles in the home interior
If you are thinking about creating a comfortable and laconic design in your cozy country house, it makes sense to use ordinary pebbles as a finishing material.
Interior design in the popular Scandinavian eco style, where color minimalism quietly harmonizes with the simplicity and functionality of furnishings, is an excellent choice for decorating country apartments.
A floor paved with river pebbles or a spectacular floor-to-ceiling panel in the fireplace room, finishing a kitchen backsplash or a wall near the washbasin will give your country interior a special flavor and a sense of deep satisfaction from the creative process.
Perhaps, in terms of functionality, some people prefer practical laminate, plastic panels and ceramic tiles, but looking at these inspiring ideas for using pebbles, for example, in the bathroom, it is very difficult to remain indifferent.
It would seem that there is nothing special, but the decorative finish made of river stones, even if it requires patience and certain skills in work, allows us to fully realize our design inclinations. I see so, - you say, and you will be right!
Stone as a way to design reservoirs
As you can see in the photo of stones in the country, they can be used to decorate water bodies. It is appropriate to lay out the bed of the stream or the bank of the pond with pebbles.
They can also be used to fold the bowl of a fountain or build a real waterfall. The main thing is to choose waterproof rocks for the design of water structures.
Small boulders and boulders
Small squat stones are called boulders or lumps. In shape, they can be either smooth, rounded, or resemble a natural piece of rock.
Most often they are used to create alpine hills in the form of a rocky slope, ravine, mountain stream, plateau. To make the rock garden look natural, they combine blocks of different sizes, and to imitate rock talus, they supplement them with large and small rubble.
The highlight of this rocky composition is sheared boxwood bushes imitating boulders
Single boulders, located next to low trees and shrubs, emphasize the naturalness of the composition, soften the impression of the "man-made" landscape. But for this to work, the stone is chosen so that it looks part of the surrounding landscape, does not knock out of it with too flashy color or inappropriate texture.
An example of the harmony of stone and plants
In small areas, instead of an alpine slide, they often create miniature compositions consisting of one stone and 1-2 plants.They play the role of focal points and look great on the lawn, stone fill, paving.
A small boulder framed with yew, against the will, attracts the eye
