Services of landscape designer - expensiveservice. But I'd like to see something unusual in my summer cottage or near the house, pleasing to the eye and causing secret envy of my friends. But even more a reason for pride - to tell them that this charm is created by our own hands. On any plot of land an expressive element will be an alpine slide. An exquisite combination of the severity of natural stone and the tenderness of pathetically fragile plants will suggest the immutability of the Earth and the unchanging triumph of life on it. What you need to create a harmony of stone and life, how to make an alpine slide with your own hands, will be told in this article.

What do you need to create a rock garden?

First of all, of course - inspiration. After all, creative work without it is impossible. And if something has to be done without inspiration, then the result is appropriate - banality and vulgarity. In addition to inspiration, you will need a natural stone. Fragments of different sizes with protruding corners and sharp edges can be bought at a quarry where rubble is made, or in construction shops. If there is an opportunity, it is worth looking for stones at the steep banks of the river or ravine, on the slopes of highways .. It's good if there are real mountains, hills or hills nearby. On their slopes, you can find a lot of stone fragments of various shapes and at the same time draw from the nature of the idea for a combination of stones and plants. It is better if the stones are of the same color scale and one or two or three similar in form rocks, as is the case in these mountains. For the alpine slide, granite of different shades of gray, sandstone in gray-yellowish tones, is suitable. You can choose to combine reddish granite stones with the same color in the flagstone. With these shades will blend green plants and yellow, orange-red, purple and violet flowers. Exquisite will look and plants with reddish or purple foliage, bright fruits.

So, we begin ...

You need to start by choosing a location on the site. It is better to look natural relief. Then you just need to emphasize the difference in height in the process of work and decorate the slopes. But even on a flat as a table area you can create a rocky mountain landscape. This will require a lot of effort and time, but the aesthetic pleasure of contemplating the result will cover fatigue and a few lost weeks. The place for construction should be well-lit, open and accessible to contemplation. It will be necessary to determine the dimensions of the future hill to achieve harmony with the surrounding elements of the garden. Maybe you'll have to pave and trowel new tracks for a better view of the roller coaster from all sides and provide access to the gazebo, which now will have to be bypassed. The place is selected. Next business is planning and marking the territory. The initial plan should be created on paper. Here and work for inspiration - to present in detail and implement in the picture mountains and valleys, which previously existed only in unformed dreams. And then mark the selected area.

Pit and drainage

A foundation ditch is needed for the foundationthe future roller coaster. Its depth depends on the size and height of the rock garden. The more the mass of earth and stones poured, the more powerful it will be to make a foundation for it, so that after the first winter the rock garden will not turn into an inexpressive mound. I do not have to dig too far. The meter depth of the pit is sufficient in the most difficult case. The dug excavation is filled with drainage material. If the site is under construction of a house or outbuildings, large repairs are carried out with the inevitable horrifying amount of construction debris, a pit under the Alpine hill will help solve the problem with its removal. All pieces of concrete and brick, sand, gravel, glass perfectly fill the pit. Do not fill the pit with drainage material. When there are approximately 30 cm to the brim, lay a layer of small gravel, ASG or large river sand on the drain. Align and tamper with it, apply a layer of fertile soil with peat (30%) and fine gravel (30%) on top. Form an elevation according to plan. They say that even the demiurge was resting after the creation of the world. A week or two will have to be given to shrink and compact the base of the alpine hill. At this time, you can take a breath.

The process of mountain building

For stacking stones on the Alpine hill there is oneAn important rule: in the base there should be large, massive stones. The higher, the smaller. Large stones on the edges of the earth heap should be dug in half, so that it would look like they were bared with time. Symmetry and geometry should be forgotten - in nature there are no equally fallen stones. Then comes the turn of the middle stones. Place them so that between them and the stones of the first tier there are places filled with earth. Here plants will be planted. Medium stones also place arbitrarily, taking into account only your own imagination and easy access to earth pockets for caring for flowers and shrubs, so that you can freely reach any point of the rock garden. So there are man-made mountains.

What is growing in the Alps?

The selection of plants for rock gardentwo main variants: perennial herbaceous and arboreal shrub plants and various annuals. In flower shops it is possible to get young with different colors - their fleshy rosettes among the bare stones will decorate the hill immediately after planting. In the first year, it is worth sowing seeds, planting seedlings of biennial and perennial grasses and flowers. In autumn, in September-October, plant bulbs of tulips and small-bellied. Then already in the early spring of the next year a man-made miracle will please the look. To the alpine hill was pleased with the eye soon after construction, in the first year, most of the plants on it will make summer and autumn beautifully flowering species - portalak, Iberis, alissum, escholzia, nasturtium and stunted marigolds and asters. They sow directly into the soil in May, and the earliest of them begin to bloom a month after sowing, others take the baton a little later. You can buy in the shops ready for planting flowering seedlings of annual flowers. Dwarf conifers harmoniously fit into the rock landscape, and their delicate branches will turn green after frost. It is necessary to select those breeds which will well overwinter in the conditions offered to them. After all, winter winds and thaws can reduce the layer of snow or completely expose the elevated portion of the landscape where it will be necessary to winter the plants. In the central part of Russia, winters are well experienced by dwarfish thuja, pine and spruce, junipers. To give the stones a natural mossiness, one must find in the damp and shady places the pads of green velvet moss. This moss needs to be carefully grinded and mixed with soil and water to a thin gruel. She put on the northern, unlighted by the sun the surface of the stones, the ground beneath them. Similarly, with lichen - multi-colored scaly spots it is easy to see on different surfaces.

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