Stone slide with flowers in a garden interior. Alpine slide in the country: a unique landscape with your own hands

Thoughtful and stylish landscape plot with luxurious flower beds and rock gardens - the pride of the owner. The design of the territory is especially impressive if the alpine slide is made with your own hands. After all, most people are sure that only a professional designer can do such work. But in fact, if there is no large quantity time, desire, as well as plants and the necessary materials, you can create an interesting rock garden.

A piece of the Alps on a summer cottage

Alpine slide at the dacha it is becoming an increasingly popular decorative element for even small garden plots. After all, beautiful stone elevations look impressive and fit perfectly into any stylistic design of the space. Any alpine slide is a unique design object. Exist certain rules its creation, but the style, size, features of the slides depend directly on the taste and creative idea creator. Probably, even if you use step-by-step photos to create an alpine slide with your own hands, two different designers will get different final options.

The base is stone. But not all piles of stones with vegetation growing among them are called alpine slides. There must be aesthetic appeal and harmony. There are several types of rock gardens:

DIY alpine slides - where to start?

Before you start directly creating a rock garden, you need to prepare for such work. After all, just based on photos, alpine slides in landscape design can be created quickly and easily with your own hands. The creation process is usually preceded by careful preparation, which includes several stages:

  1. We select a place for placement. The choice may fall on an uneven surface or a flat area if there are no natural irregularities. The size of the rock garden depends on the size of the plot. But it's better if to create an element landscape design manages to find a spacious and bright place.
  2. Sketch a sketch of the future rock garden. To do this, you can use a photo of alpine slides in the countryside, created by yourself. The sketch will help you ultimately get the result you originally expected.
  3. Buy everything necessary materials to create a slide. It is better to prepare stones, soil, plants and other decorative elements immediately so that work does not stop due to a lack of one or another component.

When choosing a location for the future rock garden, try to choose favorable angles. Such beauty cannot be hidden from everyone, it is important to show it off!

Choosing stones and plants for the rock garden

Any alpine slide in the countryside is created with your own hands from several basic elements:


How to make an alpine slide yourself?

So, everything is ready to create a beautiful rock garden. The most difficult thing remains - completing the slide on your own. In order for the result to soon delight you with its beauty, you need to follow simple recommendations:

When placing large boulders, be sure to leave some space between them, as the planted plants will need space to develop their root systems.

The best time to start creating an alpine slide with your own hands is in the fall. The soil will settle over the winter, so in the spring it will be possible to fill up the voids that have arisen and plant plants. A competent approach will allow you to create a beautiful alpine hill in your garden.

Master class on creating an alpine slide - video

Secrets of successfully creating an alpine slide

Every landscape designer has certain secrets that help him create stylish, spectacular and unique elements when designing a garden or park area. But all these nuances can be used by beginners. Just in the photo, a do-it-yourself alpine slide for beginners seems like a simple and laconic structure. In reality, it consists of selected elements, well-planned placement and several subtleties that help achieve a stunning appearance.

To make the first rock garden you created with your own hands look great, we share a few secrets of its harmonious appearance:

  1. To create a hill, it is better to choose stones of the same type. Only in this case it is possible to achieve a natural appearance of the slide.
  2. The size of the stones should correspond to the area of ​​the rock garden. How larger size alpine slide, the larger boulders can be used.
  3. When choosing plants, preference is given to evergreen and low-growing species. In this case, the slide itself will not be lost in a few years. lush greenery overgrown flowers and shrubs.
  4. They look ideal among stones, as well as cover and creeping species. Flowering plants It’s better to choose small flowers that won’t distract all the attention.
  5. It is better to plant plants in small holes and cover them with soil and small stones. This will help prevent weed growth.
  6. Plants should be placed so that they do not block stone embankments.

Despite the fact that grass and flowers should not block the stones, in a rock garden the vegetation is always in the foreground.

The choice of plants to create an alpine slide gives room for imagination, because this element of landscape design allows for a riot of colors, a variety of varieties, even a combination of opposites. Alpine slides imitate rocky areas, which are diverse in nature. The main thing is that the slide has a realistic appearance, and how steep, rocky and flowery its slopes will be depends only on the author’s imagination. And it is in this versatility that lies the very “zest” that made the alpine coaster into modern gardens so popular.

We create an alpine slide ourselves - video

Decorating your garden or summer cottage is nothing easier. You can arrange them with a variety of flowers that will delight their owners all summer. You can plant flowers along garden paths or just near the house. Or you can build an alpine slide to your delight and to the envy of your neighbors. This landscape design object is becoming more and more popular from year to year. For help you can contact professional designers, or you can build this miracle yourself. Each element should be thought through so that the alpine slide fits harmoniously into the landscape.

A rock garden will perfectly decorate any area, and you can place it on the territory different sizes. A small piece of the rocky surface of the Alpine mountains looks very good against any background. To create such a miracle on your site correctly and beautifully, you need to know several nuances, otherwise it will have to be disassembled and wasted time and money will be irretrievably lost.

Choosing a location for an alpine slide

First you need to choose a place to place the slide. Natural unevenness can be used; it is also possible to use a flat surface. The most important thing is that there is enough sunlight, ideally in the center of the site.

If this is not possible and personal plot cannot meet all the requirements, there is no need to be upset.

Next, the base is marked. At the same time, you should consider approaches to the slide. For work you only need gardening Tools. You will also need stones different sizes, stone chips, drainage material, sand, fertile soil, seedlings of flowers and small shrubs.

In order for the alpine slide to look harmonious, you need to dig a shallow hole under it, its size is made on a scale of 1:2, no more than a meter deep. Strengthen the bottom of the hole with a cushion of gravel, broken bricks or other construction debris, water it generously and compact it.

In the central part, the drainage layer should be larger than at the edges. A ten-centimeter layer of sand is poured on top of it. Water, tamp down, add sand where necessary.

Cover the top with soil with a high clay content, you can purchase it in a store or mix it yourself, the proportions of clay soil with peat are 4:1, add a little peat to the soil in a proportion of 5:1. This stage is very important for an alpine slide; if the drainage is done incorrectly, then everything will spread out and settle after a large amount of precipitation falls.

The stones are laid on top. Moreover, their size and number will depend on individual fantasies. The shape of an alpine slide can be either horizontal or vertical. It is advisable to use natural stones, avoid sharp chips. If you choose for the rock garden flat stones, then they should be laid with one edge raised.

Selection of decorative elements

Stones are an integral part of an alpine slide. The sizes of the selected stones should be proportional. Huge boulders cannot be used in a small alpine slide. Stones need to be taken in different sizes, large stones are placed in the base, and smaller ones are installed on them.

For structural strength, large stones are covered with earth. The stones must be of the same type. Symmetry when laying stones will ruin appearance alpine slide, they should look as natural as possible.

Harder stones will last longer. Soft stones, such as limestone, will become covered with moss over time, this will give the alpine slide an original and primitive look. Lay out the pebbles from bottom to top, determining a place for each.

Large stones should be placed at the very bottom; it is advisable to place small stones at the top. Be sure to provide “pockets” for planting. The main rule at this stage is the stability of the stones (if necessary, they are additionally strengthened) and the asymmetrical arrangement of all elements. The almost finished slide should be spilled with water and, if necessary, soil should be added in sagging areas.

Plants for alpine slides

Plants for the slide must be chosen from different flowering periods. WITH early spring and until late autumn she will look playful.

Another rule is the location of plants. They cannot block stones. Perennials are better suited small plants, they must be unpretentious. When choosing plants, it is worth remembering seasonal changes.

The top of the hill is usually decorated with small trees or shrubs; these can be juniper, thuja, and dwarf pine. Flowers that complement the composition are better of natural origin; they can be found in the nearest forest; they should not be tall so as not to cover the stones.

Plants such as saxifrage, edelweiss, poppy, violet, cactus, spirea, and cinquefoil are suitable for this. The main thing is that they get along with each other and withstand the conditions of your climate.


Plants for rock gardens - phlox awl-shaped and young
Multi-colored purslane on an alpine hill

Plant in shallow holes, filling with soil with the addition of a small amount of very small stone. This will prevent weeds from growing and will help retain moisture.

50 examples of alpine slides for every taste

Alpine slide photo gallery

The picturesque landscape of the Alpine mountains inspired gardeners to create alpine slides, which traditionally consist of a combination of stone and mountain plants

Relatively recently, in landscape design, classic flower beds, ridges and plaster sculptures new types of site decoration have arrived - rock gardens. They are settled in rich estates and on summer cottages, in city gardens and squares, on lawns near offices and in restaurant areas. Properly and tastefully selected stones and plants will allow you to create a zone of luxury, aesthetics and peace even on the most modest piece of land near a country house.

An alpine hill densely planted with plants amazes the eye with its bright, rich colors

Being a unique and very labor-intensive decoration of the landscape, rock gardens seem to be complex in execution and hard-to-find decorative elements. However, if you understand the technology of creation, then an alpine slide at the dacha can be built without the involvement of expensive designers.

A piece of the Alps at your dacha

When developing the design of an alpine slide, you need to take into account that this is an imitation of rocky natural areas. This means that the basis of the composition should be stones and creeping low plants, characteristic of high-mountain areas. And the definition of “slide” dictates general shape rock garden - a hill with mandatory elements: bottom, slopes and top.

A rock garden is a “highlight” that can instantly transform the appearance of a garden landscape

There are several options for rock gardens, which repeat their appearance in different areas of the mountainous terrain:

  • rocky cliff - a pile of almost bare large boulders with a minimum of plants in niches and “pockets”;

Connecting functionality and decorative function: stone steps and rocky rock garden

Larger plants are planted on the tops of the rolling pin, emphasizing the dynamics of the height difference

  • mountain slope - a complex high composition of stones of different sizes and with a wide variety of creeping and low-growing plants;

To design such a rock garden, dwarf plants are used, as well as large blocks of stone that imitate rock fragments

  • valley in the mountains - large stones, partially protruding from the ground, surrounded by abundantly flowering ornamental plants;

The natural landscape made it possible to create a flowering stone hill with little effort

  • gorge is the most difficult to implement, but also the most spectacular type of rock garden, which can be placed in a natural hollow, framing the slopes with stones and planting representatives of rock flora.

Neatly stacked stones in the shape of a semicircle in a composition with flowering plants - a spectacular club in your yard

A separate type is considered to be a rockery - a garden of stones, which are the main " actors”, unlike a rock garden, where stones serve as a backdrop for plants.

Any terrain landscape, including absolutely flat soil, is suitable as a site for creating a rock garden.

How to make an alpine slide on a personal plot?

If you have firmly decided that a self-made alpine slide will become a decoration for your garden - step-by-step instruction will give you the opportunity to avoid serious mistakes and get desired result. Before starting work, sketch out a sketch of the rock garden - this will help you decide how much area it will occupy, what configuration it will have and how many tiers you will make on it. You can even roughly estimate how much an alpine slide will cost you - a diagram drawn to scale will help you calculate how many and what kind of stones you will need, how much drainage, sand and soil will need to be prepared. The design needs to be made in relation to the area in order to take advantage of all the advantageous aspects of the existing landscape.

Creative decoration for rock gardens - clay bowl with plants

  1. When deciding on the location for the future rock garden, do not forget that you will need to look at it - choose the most advantageous angles. In addition, think about it - you may want to spend your free time near it. Then you will need an adjacent flat area with paths, space for a table and a fireplace.

The path from the rock garden leads directly to the recreation area

A cozy corner for relaxation in the “rock garden”

  • Planted plants for an alpine hill will need solar heat - this means that the slopes must be oriented to the south and east.
  • Very interesting visual effects will be obtained by using natural uneven terrain - decorative elements inscribed in the natural landscape will be a great addition to it.

Spectacular alpine slide with a small pond

This is not an imitation of a landscape, but simply an artistic composition of asymmetrically located stone blocks with paths between them and plant compositions

  1. The next step is to transfer your diagram to the site. Make the markings using a string or filling the required lines with a contrasting material - sand, lime. This will allow you to look at the proposed location of the rock garden from the outside. You may decide to slightly change its configuration to suit the terrain.

The rock garden serves bright decoration garden, standing out against the green lawn

  1. Having approved the choice of location, you need to prepare the site for laying stones. Soil consisting largely of clay or black soil will have to be drained, sandy soils do not need such preparation. For drainage, remove the soil to a depth of at least 30 cm, fill the pit building materials large fractions, compacted and covered with removed soil flush with the surrounding soil. To compact the loosened soil, it is spilled with water.

A miniature rock garden with dwarf plants placed around the perimeter of the terrace will add personality to your recreation area

  1. The largest boulders are placed along the perimeter of the prepared site. If necessary, they can be buried in the soil - then they will have a more natural appearance. Inner space filled with soil, which will become the basis for the next tier, as well as a habitat for plants.

A composition of stones located on the main facade of the house is a wonderful addition to the image of your home

  • Having retreated the calculated distance from the first row, insert the next chain of stones, maintaining the desired configuration of the rock garden.

Advice! When laying large stones, leave free space between them, which will be filled with soil - the planted plants will need space to develop the root system.

  1. Having completed the required number of tiers, the top is decorated. To do this, you can lay one large stone, or use several small ones stacked in a pyramid. This will prevent erosion of the soil, and will also complete the composition.

It is better to begin work on laying a rock garden in the fall, then by spring the soil poured between the stones will settle and it will be possible to fill in all the resulting voids. You will also have the opportunity to make final adjustments to rock placement before planting.

Vertical blooming alpine composition creates a romantic mood

A retaining wall in the form of a rock garden is a new salvation from “boring” walls

Advice!The main rule is that a rock garden should look decorative and beautiful even without flowers. Stones must be harmonious and balanced to create a stable and extremely natural composition. The less symmetry it has, the more organic it will look.

The pride of the homeowner - a do-it-yourself alpine slide

The implemented step-by-step instructions for an alpine slide will give you the opportunity to create on your site a real masterpiece landscape design. And to make it impeccable, we will reveal some secrets that will help you in your work:

A mini rock garden in a flower bed is very suitable for small courtyards where there is no room for standard stone compositions

To create a miniature rock garden you will only need dwarf plants, pebbles and a terracotta pot.

  • Stones for an alpine slide must be selected of the same type, of the same breed. Then the rock garden will look extremely natural.

Rock garden with a pond, decorated with stones of approximately the same shape

A high hill, made of stones and greenery, can serve as a fence for the site

  • The size of the stones should correspond to the area occupied by the rock garden - the larger it is, the larger boulders can be used to fill it.
  • When choosing flowers for an alpine hill, focus on the timing of their flowering. Maximum decorativeness is achieved with a continuous series of various flowering spots on the surface of the rock garden you create.

A minimalist version of rock gardens - simplicity that highlights the architecture in the background

  • The species composition of plants must be selected from low-growing and evergreen options. Then the rock garden will not be hidden behind lush greenery, and in the fall you will not have to choose fallen leaves among the stones.
  • For the slide you can take a couple of short ones coniferous plants. They fit perfectly between the stones without cluttering them. It is good to place creeping or cover species between them - the green spots between the stones look very decorative. Flowering plants are also selected to be low in stature and with small flowers.

Most popular plants for rock garden:

  • dwarf spruce,
  • thuja,
  • juniper,

Juniper looks beautiful in a composition with stones

  • cypress,
  • cotoneaster,

When arranging an alpine hill, you should definitely take into account the features of the landscape and, based on this, choose the appropriate landscaping option

  • dryad,
  • Iberis,
  • young,
  • rock alyssum,

Mountain waterfalls are also characteristic of Alpine landscapes

  • short-stemmed carnation,
  • saxifrage

Saxifragas will add color accents to the alpine corner

A spectacular element in the landscape is a self-created alpine slide. A rock garden is a small area in the garden, designed as a natural area.

Many owners of personal plots are interested in how to make an alpine slide with their own hands?

To create this corner wildlife on your site you need to familiarize yourself with the intricacies of landscape design.

Usually this masterpiece is located in the most visible place. In addition, the rock garden requires sunny place, so this corner is usually located in an open area.

Since an alpine slide has a calming effect on a person, it is best to place it near a place of rest.

The quality of the soil cover should not be discounted, since the most favorable soil for a rock garden is sandstone, but if the soil has a clay base, then it will be necessary to make drainage.

When is the best time to create a rock garden?

An alpine slide can be created at any time of the year except winter, since in winter cold It is impossible to plant plants or prepare the soil. However, experts consider autumn to be the most optimal time for creating a rock garden.

Since the natural shrinkage of an alpine slide can take several months, then, in the opinion landscape designers, you need to prepare for autumn planting in the spring.

Creation of an alpine slide

Landscape designers, answering the question of how to make an alpine slide, offer universal schemes and projects for arranging this natural corner, taking into account all the subtleties and scope of work.

However, knowing the basic rules for creating a rock garden, you can organize it yourself.

The first thing you should pay attention to is the location. So, the rock garden should be clearly visible. Most best option is the creation of an alpine slide in the shape of a pyramid, in which maximum height concentrated in the center.

In addition, all elements of the rock garden should be positioned freely; symmetry is inappropriate here. If it is possible to organize a rock garden on a natural slope, then it is best to mark its elements at the same level.

In terms of parameters, the height of an alpine slide should be proportional to its size, that is, 1 meter of area corresponds to a height of 0.2 m, thus, a flowerbed measuring 4 m² in height will be 80 cm, as in the photo of an alpine slide.

Preparatory work

Even the simplest alpine slide requires careful preparation. So, when creating a rock garden, you need to make drainage, the fact is that the use of stones causes the soil to sag, which means you can’t do without drainage.

Drainage material can be fine gravel, pieces of red or white brick, small pebbles or crushed stones.

Before laying the drainage, it is necessary to dig a hole 1 m deep for a flower bed with an area of ​​8-9 m². Then the drainage is laid out and the soil is filled with water. Next, a layer of earth is poured.

As soil for a rock garden, it is best to use a soil composition consisting of ordinary earthen soil, peat and river sand. All soil components must be in equal proportions.

Note!

Stones

The basic element of any rock garden are stones. Usually these are large stones of an original shape.

Most often, pieces of granite, sandstone, limestone are used to create an alpine slide; you can also use wild stone, as well as tuff.

When decorating a rock garden with stones, you must follow the following rules:

  • It is best if the size of all stones is the same;
  • The stones must be of the same variety;
  • The stones must be of uneven structure and shape;
  • You need to arrange the stones so that they are asymmetrical.

You can arrange the stones according to your own taste, however experienced designers can offer you several suitable projects. IN Lately A popular scheme is when massive stones are scattered around the site, with small pebbles between them.

An alpine slide looks interesting when the most spectacular stone is installed in the center, especially if the rock garden is located on a slope.

Note!

When laying out stones, especially massive ones, you need to make sure that they stand steadily; for this, some of them can even be fixed with cement or dug in a little.

A properly organized alpine slide at the dacha can become a favorite vacation spot for the whole family.

Green spaces

2 months after preparatory work You can start planting green spaces. The most convenient plants for decorating a rock garden are low-growing spruce, thuja, mountain pine and juniper.

A small alpine slide is an excellent landscape solution for small area. When creating such a rock garden, it is best to use low-growing, herbaceous plants, such as wild carnations, low marigolds, nasturtiums, pansies and bells.

If desired, an alpine slide can be combined with a small reservoir in the form of a small pond, but in this case the process of creating a rock garden will be even more labor-intensive, but it will be a real work of landscape art.

Photo of an alpine slide with your own hands

Note!

A retaining wall in the form of a rock garden is a new salvation from “boring” walls

Advice!The main rule is that a rock garden should look decorative and beautiful even without flowers. Stones must be harmonious and balanced to create a stable and extremely natural composition. The less symmetry it has, the more organic it will look.

The pride of the homeowner - a do-it-yourself alpine slide

The implemented step-by-step instructions for an alpine slide will give you the opportunity to create a real masterpiece of landscape design on your site. And to make it impeccable, we will reveal some secrets that will help you in your work:

A mini rock garden in a flower bed is very suitable for small courtyards where there is no room for standard stone compositions

To create a miniature rock garden you will only need dwarf plants, pebbles and a terracotta pot.



The most popular plants for rock gardens:

                • dwarf spruce,
                • juniper,

Juniper looks beautiful in a composition with stones

                  • cypress,

When arranging an alpine hill, you should definitely take into account the features of the landscape and, based on this, choose the appropriate landscaping option

                    • dryad,
                    • Iberis,
                    • rock alyssum,

Mountain waterfalls are also characteristic of Alpine landscapes

                      • short-stemmed,
                      • saxifrage.

Saxifragas will add color accents to the alpine corner