My story about boulders begins some 300 million years ago. But I won’t bore you with the details. In fact, I’ll just summarize the first part: After roughly five ice ages, serious erosion, dramatic weather and persistent excavation, an infinite number of boulders were created – nine of which reside in my garden today.
Three of our largest boulders, placed at one corner of our front yard.
I think of the boulders and the many rocks in our landscape as ancient jewels. They quietly grace our garden. As does the Pecan tree and a Chinese Pistache tree we planted. Both will live for hundreds of years, which is why I think of them as a legacy to treasure. Peonies and roses (if not affected by the Rose Rosette virus) are also capable of living over a hundred years. They all make wonderful companions. But nothing will outlive a boulder. Plants and people come and go, but boulders are steadfast and forever.
My favorite Moss Boulder. We placed it between the Chinese Pistache and our South Carolina Cypress. As this area continues to grow, it should become a shaded woodland.
There’s a saying that without change there’d be no butterflies. It’s true because most everything that we hold dear in life is ephemeral. But I love boulders precisely because they won’t change. They're symbols of strength that create a sense of stability and calmness. A reminder that our universe is greater than anything we can think, do or say today.
I chose Moss Boulders for our North Texas garden because they're so distinctive in their appearance. Each is unique because of the many variables such as colors and the things that grow on them. Unlike most rocks, they're not excavated by dynamite and mining. They're typically found and "harvested" in all different regions of the world. We live in what's known as grassland. So, when we want boulders, we acquire them from areas such as Southern and Eastern Oklahoma.
In my hunt for the perfect boulders, I went to a stone supplier’s yard to personally study and choose the right ones. Sizes were important for the scale of our property. But of special interest to me were the textures and colors. All of the ones I chose had colorful patches of moss and lichen. Some even had plants growing between the cracks. I wanted all the visual detailing, not just the compositional benefits for the landscape design.
These are the sandstone Moss Boulders. Typically taken off farms and ranches where boulder removal is desired, they cost around nine cents per lb. (or $180 per ton).
Gardening with rocks and boulders in our western world first achieved popularity during the Romantic period (early 1800s). That's when gardeners began expressing nature's inherent, more authentic beauty as opposed to a rigid and symmetrical interpretation. Gardens of this era included more natural-looking fields, waterfalls, woodland settings and rock gardens. This continued to be the style during the Victorian era as designers created natural habitats and native looking areas that featured rock formations and alpine gardens.
The photos above are of Victorian and Edwardian Rock Gardens. The top one is an Alpine Garden area from the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens, circa 1900. The bottom right is the Victorian Garden at Chatsworth. The lower left is of the Doddington Gardens. Both date back to the mid 1800s.
But the idea of gardening with stones and boulders has its conceptual origins in Asia. Manuscripts dating as far back as the 1100s offer advice on how to design a garden by choosing specific stones, their orientation and placement. Principles of design also included artistic symbolism and composition, which is why the art of landscaping with rocks was very closely related to landscape painting. Both were forms of Asian art that involved technique and a highly mannered aesthetic.
A Japanese Rock Garden.
My garden, however, is very natural and simplistic. I practice the discipline of design, but I would’ve loved to scatter our boulders by throwing them up in the air and letting them land wherever providence took them. People plant wildflowers and spring bulbs this way, a method that simulates nature’s spontaneity. Given the complex, carefully procured world we live in today, I would have loved doing that with boulders. But our boulders are 150 –1,000 pounds each, so we planned and placed thoughtfully.
One of our boulders being placed near our South Carolina Cypress tree.
Upon the completion of our design, a six-year-old neighborhood boy who was riding his bike one morning pulled over from the street and rested on one of our boulders. I loved this image in my garden because it’s an example of how boulders are a fun and approachable garden installation. Trees, plants and flowers attract people. But boulders are beacons that invite them to rest.
Elizabeth Taylor once said, “I adore wearing gems, but not because they’re mine. You can’t possess radiance. You can only admire it.” That’s exactly how I feel about gardening with boulders.
In planning one of the paths to our home, we designed a flagstone area with decomposed granite. Our smaller Moss Rocks were used to line the berms of soil. It's an open and wide path that elegantly narrows down to a more intimate approach to the front door.
An example of Moss Rocks creating an edge to the berm.
An example of the many colors in a boulder, mixed with the lichen.
Another closeup on the moss and lichen. I sometimes water our boulders to make sure the growth on them gets moisture (thought I'm sure it doesn't need any help from me).
Two more boulders in the front of our yard. You can see some of the plants that grow in the cracks of the foreground boulder. The area around our boulders has existing Dynamite Crepe Myrtles, native grasses, Mexican Petunia and trailing white Lantana. One of the grasses is a very young Dwarf Hamlin, which you can see between the two boulders. On the right side of the photo is the Powis Castle Artemesia. Around it I planted Stella D'Oro Daylilies, Blue Hill Salvia and Hot and Spice Oregano ground cover. This photo was taken in the heat of the summers, so plants were in somewhat of a decline compared to how they look now.
Another fantastic example of the colorful Lichens that make these boulders so unique.
There are three main types of Lichen and anywhere between 13,500 to 17,000 species. But it's especially interesting to note that Lichen grows very slowly and can live over 8,000 years. It's one of the ways scientists date geological features, and how climate change is being tracked.
A wider shot of one of my favorite boulders. I didn't want to sink it into the soil too much because I like the height of this boulder. I especially love the green-grey Lichen colors, along with the exposed creamy orange that you see at the base. This location in the garden is especially photogenic because of the Chinese Pistache, Kaleidoscope Abelia, Giant Liriope, Oxalis Triangularis and carpet Rose.
This was a simple lawn with turf that came all the way to the asphalt of the street and driveway. Now it's a bed with a flagstone path. You can see one of the larger, more moss covered boulders as well as the Moss Rocks that line the soil berm and walkway. The plants I used are variegated Pittosporum, Giant Liriope, Society Garlic, Lady of Shalott Roses, Dwarf Hamelin Grasses, Hot and Spicy Oregano, Hardy Plumbago, Mexican Petunia and trailing white Lantana. I plan to integrate annuals occasionally, but my overall color scheme is largely white, blue, and purple with accents of yellow, orange and peach.
A pre-Covid 19 vacation photo of Bruce and a boulder in Moab, Utah. We were unable to bring this one home because it didn't fit into the trunk of our car.
Commenti