Maybe you’ve just purchased a home with rock landscaping. Or maybe you’ve just finished a project which includes some rock landscaping. Whatever the case may be, you want your landscape to look its best for as long as possible. This means you need the proper advice when it comes to maintenance of xeriscapes and rock landscaping. In this article we will give some tips on how to maintain rock landscaping.
3 Best Ways How To Maintain Rock Landscaping
Luckily, you are not going to need to do anything out of the ordinary to maintain landscape rock. In fact, most of the advice we’ll give you are probably things you’re already doing elsewhere. We’ve broken down the best methods to the three most important.
Step One: Invest In A Quality Leaf Blower
First, it’s always a good idea to start by buying a good quality leaf blower. A leaf blower is the landscaping rock’s best friend. One of the keys to keeping your rock landscaping free of leaves, pollen, and small sticks is the leaf blower. It’s important to not only use the leaf blower in the fall, but throughout the year. Think of it like dusting your landscape rock. Unless you have allergies, sometimes you wouldn’t even know if there was pollen in the air. However, by blowing off your rock landscaping regularly you can prevent the pollen from staying in place permanently.
Whenever you mow your lawn, make sure you include in your regimen using the leaf blower on the rock landscaping. Not only to remove any lawn clippings you may have blown onto the rock, but also to vacate any pollen or dust. Over time pollen, lawn clippings, and dust can combine into a black organic paste which sticks to the landscape rocks and causes headaches for future maintenance. By spending a few minutes each week when your lawn is mowed you’ll save yourself thousands of dollars in new rock and labor to spread it down the road.
Step Two: Eliminate Weeds In The Landscaping Rock Area
Next there’s the ever-present weed problem with rock landscaping. Yes, you can place geo-textile fabric underneath the rock landscaping, and this helps to some extent. However, weeds are weeds. Weeds grow virtually anywhere even when you’ve applied the proper depth of landscaping rock. They are resilient.
Before you do any weed control it’s a good idea to make sure you know which plants are weeds. Make sure your shrubs and trees aren’t affected by the weed control measures by staying clear of them with any weed control method you choose.
You can use chemical weed killer like Roundup, but we’d recommend a greener approach.
First, if you only have a few weeds, try filling a kettle with water and bringing it to a boil. Then carefully pour a generous amount of the boiling water onto the weeds. Obviously this is not an approach that will work well with a lot of weeds, but if there’s only a few, this is a trusted method for their removal.
If you have a lot of weeds, try making your own vinegar based weed killer. Then you can spray it on whenever you see weeds pop up. You can start by mixing up the following solution:
- 1 gal. White Vinegar
- 1 cup Table Salt
- 1 tablespoon Dish Detergent
Dissolve the salt, mix, and then you can put the solution in a pump sprayer. Spray liberally on the weeds making sure it’s getting to the base of the plant. You may get some salt staining with this solution. If you do, you should come back a few days after the weeds have died and rinse the stone thoroughly to wash off the salt.
Step Three: Adjust Your Irrigation System
Now you have the stone cleaned regularly and the weeds under control. Your next concern should be the irrigation system. If you have an irrigation system which is constantly over spraying onto the rock, you will have a weed problem.
You will also have the potential to create a constantly muddy area which may consolidate around the landscape rock over time. This depends greatly on the soil type in your area, but is something to consider. If you can adjust your sprinkler heads or drip system to be more accurate to your needs, you will prevent unnecessary headaches down the road.
How To Maintain Rock Landscaping Summary
We hope these tips on how to maintain rock landscaping are useful. If you follow these methods, you can keep your rock landscaping looking beautiful for years to come. Fortunately, activities like investing in a leaf blower and eliminating weeds are good practice for a healthy backyard even without the presence of landscaping rock.