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Rock garden beds create a visually appealing garden design
When we used to live on a mountainside we couldn’t build downwards because of how many rocks there were in the soil. Raised beds became the solution (see raised garden bed ideas here). Because the rocks were in abundance we chose to build raised rock garden beds.
While raised rock garden beds are pretty, there are some cons to them too.
The pros to rock garden beds
In a word? They’re beautiful! Out of my 8 years of gardening and building many garden beds, the raised rock beds were still some of my favorites for visual appeal. We build a few raised rock garden beds and we also built a permaculture herb spiral to grow our kitchen herbs (you can see the DIY step by step instructions here).
Rocks create a nice contrast to your flowers or vegetable gardening crops. Rock nooks and crannies can also house beneficial insects and create little microclimates in your garden.
The cons to rock garden beds
While they look beautiful, there are some cons to rock garden beds. They can be hard to weed, those nooks and crannies in between the rocks can be especially challenging unless regular weeding is done. Sometimes you have to move the rocks out of the way to reach deeper roots.
Below you can see the before & after of weeding our rock garden herb spiral
If you’re not a big fan of spiders you might not like rock beds either, they like to live in those dark corners! If you don’t have easy access to rocks, they can be expensive to buy and heavy to move depending on where you live.
Rocks can also shift over time, changing the bed shape and allowing soil to spill over
Would I build raised rock beds again?
All in all, even though I love the look of raised beds, I wouldn’t build them again because we’ve moved to a location that doesn’t have rocks readily available. I would however build them again if we did!
Have you built raised rock beds?
How was your experience?
My name is Isis Loran, creator of the Family Food Garden. I’ve been gardening for over 10 years now and push the limits of our zone 5 climates. I love growing heirlooms & experimenting with hundreds of varieties, season extending, crunchy homesteading and permaculture.
I’ve made rock-lined paths and gardens for years, but they really do have their down sides. It doesn’t take more than a year or two for those rocks to get covered by leaves or debri, or to settle down into the ground after a few freeze and thaws, or to have grass/weed grow up and over them. You pretty much have to excavate those rocks and re-lay them every year or you won’t be able to see them!
But, they sure are beautiful, free and pretty easy to make–thus why I keep making them!
Thank you for sharing your experience with rock beds! I’ve experienced the same thing 🙂