Corner alpine slide in the garden. Do-it-yourself Alpine slide: step-by-step photos, diagrams and installation stages

An element such as an alpine slide has long become a common element in the design of garden plots. Even small rock gardens add variety to the standard garden design. And, with just a little imagination, you can, in general, ordinary element landscape design create a real work of art.

About the history of alpine slides

The first rock gardens were supposed to imitate rocky fragments of the area, so plants were far from their main element. Over time, there was a gradual shift towards more intensive use of plants in the design of the slide.

As for the idea of ​​​​using alpine slides in gardens, it owes its appearance to chance. The fact is that at the beginning of the century before last, travelers began to actively bring plants that were outlandish at that time to England, for example, thyme or adonis. But they simply refused to grow on seemingly such fertile soil.

It was then that the gardeners of that time came up with the idea of ​​using rocky soil, which was more familiar to plants. Over time, the idea of ​​using stone in gardens was appreciated in other countries, and new fashion began to actively spread throughout the world.

The design of the garden slide has undergone several major changes since its inception.

Of course, these changes occurred smoothly, but three characteristic stages of development can be distinguished:

• stone dominance– at the initial stage, large boulders and even entire stone grottoes were actively used. Plants peeked out modestly from the cracks between the stones and were used only to emphasize the age of the stone structure;

• gradually the greenery took over the position from the stone and soon it was possible to fix parity. Stone was still the basis of the composition, but plants also received considerable attention;
• In the end, the triumph of life came - a modern alpine coaster- this is a riot of colors and greenery, slightly diluted by lifeless gray stone. Moreover, it is not necessary to use only one stone to create it. Soil, an excess of which was formed, for example, after digging a foundation pit, is also suitable.

Note!
For small plots the last 2 types of slides are suitable, large stone structures or individual boulders will look ridiculous on a small garden plot.

Homemade alpine slide - a guide to action

A do-it-yourself slide in the garden always looks impressive, but many people refuse it because of the apparent complexity and labor-intensive nature of the work.

In fact, there is nothing complicated about this, but the main attention should be paid to several points:

• choose correct location Location on;
• do not miss the size, the rock garden should not be lost on the site, but it should not overwhelm with its grandeur either;
• avoid symmetry when filling the body of the slide and decorating it with stones;

• choosing the right plants is still not a flowerbed or a flowerbed, so not all types of flowers are suitable.

Layout

Ideally, the location of the slide on the site should be dominant. That is, when drawing up a plan, you must first place the rock garden in the optimal location and, based on this, lay paths, lay out flower beds and think through further design.

In reality, this doesn’t always happen, so it’s a good idea to know a few rules for choosing a place for a rock garden:

• the place should be dry, and the groundwater should lie as deep as possible;

Note!
It is advisable to place alpine slides in the garden on a hill.
This guarantees protection from groundwater, and in case of heavy precipitation, the water will not stagnate at the foot of the rock garden.

• It is extremely undesirable to place the slide directly next to the fence or near the house, most of the effect will simply be lost. If such placement is necessary, then you need to create an advantageous background; a low bush is suitable for this. For the same reason, it is necessary to avoid the proximity of rock gardens and tall thick trees;

• the area should be well lit.

Preparatory stage

Here you will need to decide on the type of materials, think about general outline design of the future rock garden.

The instructions at this stage look like this:

• the area of ​​the rock garden base is determined;
• in this territory it is necessary to ensure good drainage, for this, the turf (a layer of plant soil 20-30 cm thick) is removed, and the free space is filled with any well-draining material. Not only crushed stone or gravel will do, but also regular construction waste, such as broken bricks or pieces of concrete.

Note!
In this case, it is better not to use the removed fertile layer for filling the hill itself.
Over time, the grass stems and roots will rot and the structure will shrink quite a bit, which can destroy the entire composition.

You can combine regular soil and gravel backfill. That is, the body of the slide is filled with gravel or crushed stone. Then there is a layer of soil and only then the structure is decorated with stones. There are many options for solving the question of how to build an alpine slide on a garden plot, the main thing is to ensure good drainage.

About the size, shape and technology of constructing a rock garden

Asymmetry can be considered a general rule when designing an alpine slide. There is no need to try to make it in the form of a perfectly regular geometric figure. Indeed, in nature, symmetry occurs only as an exception.

The stepped form is quite popular; this allows you to group plants of different types on separate tiers. Decorative stones in this case, they act as miniature retaining walls and prevent the soil from floating over time.

Note!
The dimensions of the ledges are selected individually for each specific case, but you can focus on the average height of the ledge in the range of 0.2 - 0.3 m.

As for the collection of stones, the use of boulders with noticeable inclusions of other rocks can be considered ideal. Small defects (for example, chipped areas) are also an advantage - plants can be planted in them. All boulders must be of the same type, that is, smooth, rolled stone should not be adjacent to crushed granite.

The size, as a rule, decreases from bottom to top, and the top of the hill is finished with a group of small stones, or one large one. Correct selection stones is very important, especially since the price of the structure practically does not change.

Note!
It is allowed to use large elongated stones.
They are usually simply dug into the ground, and the slide itself is placed around such stones.

As for construction technology, it is necessary to start laying boulders some time after filling the body of the slide. During this time, under the influence of its own weight and moisture from precipitation, shrinkage will end.

Selection of plants

Previously, it was considered a sign of bad taste to make rock gardens too bright and flashy. Currently, there is some departure from this rule, but turning a slide into an ordinary flowerbed still cannot be recommended. Why not list all types of plants by name, let’s break them down suitable species into groups.

Allowed to use:

• herbaceous perennials;
• small shrub, both coniferous and deciduous;
• bulbous (planted in a small area);
• ground cover species - fill all available space.

When planting in the ground, you need to make a small hole around the stem and fill it with small crushed stone. It will gather in the hole needed by the plant water, and crushed stone will drown out the weeds.

Summarizing

Even the simplest rock garden will beneficially diversify the design of any garden. There is no need to be afraid of an unfamiliar name; even a novice summer resident can cope with the construction of an alpine slide. The tips presented in this article will help you avoid common beginner mistakes.

The video in this article shows an example of constructing a simple alpine slide with minimal financial costs.

Relatively recently in landscape design in replacement, discounts 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

• gorge- 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.

It is considered a separate species rockery- a garden of rocks, which are the main " actors”, unlike a rock garden, where stones serve as a backdrop for plants.

How to make an alpine slide in a small area?

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 gross mistakes and get the 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. You need to make a diagram in relation to the area in order to take advantage of all the advantageous moments.

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

Advice! 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.

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.

   

2. 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.
3. Having retreated the calculated distance from the first row, they 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.

4. 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.



Advice! It is better to start 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.

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.

No mercy for those who call a pile of stones and earth a rock garden! Landscape designer Olga Kirillova reveals professional secrets creating a real alpine landscape in a garden plot and gives valuable advice. The author will sort it out typical mistakes, and at the end of the publication you will find a bonus: a large table with the types and varieties of plants for the alpine hill, the features of caring for them and an indication of the growth rate.

If you are confident in your abilities, do not be afraid of strict criticism from a specialist, do as your heart tells you, based on the practical recommendations you have received. Moreover, some rules can be ignored, but some must be followed. Strictly, critically, to the point - this is the article that we bring to your attention.

Alpine slide in the country

An alpine slide, or rock garden, is a small architectural element of a garden plot, which is both a flower garden and a small architectural form simultaneously. Roughly speaking, on an artificially created small hill there is a flower garden with stones and sometimes water elements. A slide can be created in absolutely any shape and size, but, in my opinion, it is fundamentally wrong to create a miniature-sized structure in the corner of a flower bed and call it an alpine slide. We'll talk about this a little later.

Almost every customer of mine asks to allocate a place on his site for an alpine slide, since this is a very common, although not cheap, element of landscaping. But as the years go by, landscape designers adhere to modern trends and guided own experience, they try to use it as rarely as possible in their gardens, despite the fact that amateur gardeners insist on originality, uniqueness and the need to have a slide on their plots.

In this article, I do not want to praise this form of landscaping as zealously as the authors of other articles on the same topic. I would like to talk with you about real things and real situations that you may encounter during and, most importantly, after implementing an alpine slide on your site.

Variety of alpine slides

Each alpine slide is unique. There will not be a single stone or a single plant that will be located in it in the same way. Of course, in their structure, all rock gardens are approximately similar, but they are often used to play up certain elements of the garden: a staircase, a retaining wall, uneven ground, a pond or a spring flowing on the site. Since the situations on the plots are always different, the hill in each garden will have its own character and its own unique atmosphere.

Perennials, conifers and deciduous shrubs and sometimes dwarf trees, but this is not always the case. In general, a classic rock garden is not characterized by placement coniferous trees and shrubs, but to preserve the decorative effect of the flower garden for as long as possible, this rule can be neglected.

All plants must be frost-resistant and undemanding to watering. It is advisable to select slow-growing plants, then you can spend less time controlling the growth of planting zones.

Do it yourself or trust a designer?

This is what real alpine landscapes look like:

Beautiful, isn't it? Probably everyone, admiring such landscapes, is ready to feel the frosty fresh air with an admixture of sweetish aromas flowering plants. Of course, most gardeners near their home want to get closer to the beautiful or to bring the beautiful closer to themselves, therefore, inspired by such photographs, a person who has no experience in creation begins to draw diagrams and plan where on his site this structure will be located.

This is what happens in the end...

I don't think it looks like a source of inspiration. Of course we have limited areas plots and financially we are often not ready to scatter, but why do such flower beds look so strange? A pile of earth clogged with stones and chaotically scattered plants cannot become the PEARL of your site. In my social circle landscape designers, we call such alpine slides “dog graves”... Please don’t be angry, those who still like this kind of thing, but a small mound that appears in the middle of a lawn or on the corner of a flower bed, lined with pebbles and flowers, and not beaten by anything, is not associated with anything else. Look again at the shapes of the slides shown in the photo above, at their location on the site - you should never do this!

Creating an alpine slide is indeed an extremely labor-intensive process. Without creating experience, it is incredibly difficult to make something tasteful. I remember when I created my first slide... Now I can’t even look at it without tears. It is important to take into account absolutely every touch, the stones that will be used, their location, the height of the embankment, the location on the site, the placement and abundance of plants on it.

Moreover, this is not a cheap pleasure if you do everything at once. For the most unattractive-looking flower garden, depending on the size, a self-taught owner can spend from 50,000 to 150,000 rubles. If you do good slide decent looking, then you need to count on an amount above 300,000 rubles (at least in the Moscow region).

How more flower garden, the more natural it looks, more natural and is not associated with anything bad. But, naturally, than larger size, the more significantly more expensive.

Should you do it yourself or trust the designers? Looking at what gardeners are doing, I still recommend contacting a designer who has PRACTICAL experience in creating alpine slides. It won’t be much more expensive, if not for the same money that you would spend yourself, but it will look as it should, and not as it turns out...

How to build an alpine slide with your own hands

When is the best time to start making an alpine slide?

The construction of an alpine slide begins with selecting a location on the site. It should be protected from the wind and slightly shaded.

The slide itself can be made at any time you wish throughout the summer season, but the time for planting the plants will have to be decided in advance. If you are going to sow some seeds perennial species, then most often this is done in the fall, but perennial seedlings It’s better to plant in the spring - this way it will be easier to decide on the quantity and location of planting and replant if something happens. If the plants were purchased in pots, then there are no specific planting dates, since root system formed and does not suffer during transplantation.

As I said above, it is extremely important to organically fit the rock garden into the area surrounding it, so that it does not look like a randomly formed bunch. To do this, be prepared to use a significant area. It’s good when the garden smoothly flows into an alpine hill, that is, as you approach it, stones and similar plants begin to appear more and more often, this will connect and balance the transition.

I recommend not making artificial sharp boundaries of the flower garden. If on one side the rock garden is limited by a path, then extend its part on the other side. On the other hand, it is not necessary to lift the soil too much and lay large boulders; a few strokes are enough to complete the composition. If the alpine slide, limited by the path, is quite large, then there is no need to extend it on the other side.

When we drew a diagram of the location of the flower bed on the site and a planting diagram, I would also recommend making a flowering diagram. You decorate all the species selected and arranged in the diagram with the color of their main decorative effect in May, June, July and August. You will be surprised how clear it will become where to plant, what to exclude and what to add to your rock garden for permanent decoration. Otherwise, it may turn out like this: your flower garden was green, then in the summer it all bloomed at once, and then began to fade in bald patches and locally lose its decorative effect.

Where to start building an alpine slide

The construction itself begins with calculating the volume of required material in cubes. If you need to create a fairly large level of flower bed with terraces, but want to save money, then you can lay inverted layers of turf as the base. We dug up a bed of weeds where they got in the way and placed them in the skeleton of an alpine hill - two useful things at once.

Then we fill it with earth according to the intended shape. Try to give it the most natural shape possible. In nature, round or oval mounds look alien... The line of the flower bed should be landscape and dynamic.

Based on the situation, you should very carefully calculate the required volume of imported soil and stones so that you do not have to buy more and overpay for delivery.

How to calculate the volume of materials for an alpine slide?

For large perennials, it is good if the fertile layer of soil you pour is 15 - 30 cm. Less is possible, but the less, the worse the plants will grow. If the area of ​​our flower bed is 50 m², and the thickness of the poured soil is 30 cm, then we order 15 m³ fertile land. This is approximately one car. For the form itself, the skeleton, where we use turf or waste soil, there is no approximate calculation. This will depend on the shape and height of the desired mound. Rubble stone (fractions up to 50 cm) for such an area will also be 10-15 m³ (one truck).

While I was writing this article, one gardener asked me a question: Is it necessary to create a drainage layer of sand and crushed stone at the base of the slide?

I answer everyone who asked the same question: you can create a layer if you have nowhere to put an extra penny. In practice, there is simply no noticeable difference. The only thing is, if during the construction of a house you have heaps of spoiled earth with crushed stone, sand and stones on your site, you can use them in the foundation, or build a slide directly on them (to save money and labor costs).

What tools will you need to create a rock garden?

The best tool in creating an alpine slide is five workers... But seriously, building a frame for a flower bed with placing stones is an extremely labor-intensive process that can only be done alone if you want to work yourself out. The larger the boulders, the more picturesque they look, but placing them is extremely difficult.

In addition to the heroic work force You will need shovels, gloves, rubber boots, pegs with thread for lining the shape and a rake.

How long does it take to build an alpine slide?

Depending on the means and desire, as well as the time when work on the alpine slide begins, construction may take no more than a year.

If in early spring You begin to make the frame of a flower garden more than 30-40 cm high, arrange the stones, then after the soil settles (about a month later, if it rains), you can confidently plant the plants and not be afraid that the stones will crawl or a hole will form.

If the height of the rock garden is small, then you can plant the plants immediately after installing the base.

What to pay attention to so that the slide retains its beauty for a long time

Probably the most important thing to really pay attention to is the plants that will be used in your alpine garden. Namely, the abundance of species and their number per square meter.

I understand that there are a lot of plants suitable for it and they are all so cool that I want to use them as much as possible. BUT! They will look harmonious and natural only large groups one type. After all, we are creating an alpine landscape, and there plants, untouched by man, have grown over the years, forming indescribable carpets. These are the kind of carpets we need to create.

If we use ground cover plants, then it’s worth taking only a few types, but a lot, when organizing a carpet or the basis for a future carpet. When we add simple perennial bushes, we add them locally and a little, so that they grow quietly in the area allocated to them and do not outweigh the composition. They will look great coniferous shrubs and low-growing trees. They will form the basis for year-round decoration.

If on initial stages Do not overdo it with thickening the planting, then in the near future you will not have to urgently plant them. I often encounter such a problem as an excessive excess of plants in customers’ flower beds. Of course, almost always the owner wants to have a visually completed and ready-made element of the garden, but there is no understanding that literally in the second year the plants begin to grow and choke less aggressive species, which are lost, wither and ultimately spoil the overall appearance. You have to dig up, stir up the entire planting, damage established plants and look for a new one seat for those who have been released. In addition, this is an overpayment for planting material, A extra expenses even wealthy people do not need them at all.

How to choose stones for a rock garden. Laying stones for an alpine slide

Don't turn your rock garden into a rock garden or a pile of roughly dumped cobblestones! Very often I meet people who overdo it with stones. There are a huge number of them on sale in all sorts of colors and shapes. So beautiful, your mouth is watering, and, of course, you want to decorate the area with them as much as possible.

Illustrative examples of sorting stones.

A large number of stones will look good on large areas with a corresponding transition of the area into a rock garden.

But if you set out to create an alpine landscape on the site small sizes, we forget about the impossible beauty and the same impossibly high prices. We buy ordinary rubble stone of large fractions and place it in groups in the flower garden and a little on the site. As you understand, it is only possible to guess where all the stones will lie approximately, so we focus on the spot.

If you are going to create a gushing spring with a stream on your alpine hill, then you can use fine gravel or rubble crushed stone to fill the gutter. Materials should only be used that are similar in structure. Otherwise it will look foreign and hurt your eyes.

If you use a rounded flat stone or flagstone, then, as you understand, this will go against the alpine theme.

Near the spring, it is good to create an imitation of a rockfall: large rubble stones mixed with rubble crushed stone of large and medium fractions. In this way, you can make the transition from large stones to filling the stream gutter.

Plants for alpine hills

For landscaping an alpine hill, you can use annual, perennial, cereal plants, as well as coniferous and deciduous trees and shrubs. Of course, under the trees in in this case refers to dwarf compact forms.

All plants selected for the rock garden must be undemanding to moisture and frost-resistant. Since you are creating an artificial hill, you should be prepared for faster loss of moisture and weathering. It is best to protect plantings from the north side to protect them from cold northern winds.

When using any plant in an alpine hill, special attention should be paid to its growth rate and aggressiveness. Since we need to create a harmonious and more or less varied carpet of plants that would look neat, we should limit the growth of “aggressors” by digging in plastic or metal edge around the growth zone so that you don’t have to thin out the plantings afterwards.

To fill the voids among freshly planted perennials, trees and shrubs while they are growing, some use decorative mulch, but I recommend planting annual plants. Mulch is washed out quite quickly and spoils the whole look, and with the help of annuals you can diversify your flower garden with different colors for the first couple of years.

Steps for creating an alpine slide on the site

Now let’s break down what you will have to do if you decide to self-construction alpine slide.

1. We create a plan diagram of the location of the alpine slide on the site with a calendar of flowering plants.
2. We calculate the volume of required materials: earth, stones, plants and seeds, as well as other materials (if a stream, fountain, spring, etc. will be created).
3. We mark the future flower garden with pegs and adjust the shape according to the location.
4. We create the skeleton of the slide from upturned turf or soil damaged during construction.
5. We lay large boulders.
6. Add soil to give the final shape to the flower bed.
7. Water and let the water absorb. We are waiting for shrinkage if the rock garden is tall.
8. If you are making an artificial cyclic stream, then lay a hose or PVC pipe on the side of the gutter. We also hide the lighting and pump wiring in a black corrugated or HDPE pipe.
9. We lay geotextiles (or used advertising banners) in those places where there will be a stream gutter and a bowl at the source of a spring or fountain.
10. We add soil in places where the earth has settled.
11. Pour in small stones or crushed stone.
12. We plant plants and water them.

Assortment of plants for an alpine hill

When selecting plants for an alpine hill, the most difficult thing is to decide on their types and varieties. After all, they have different needs, growth rates and sizes.

I have compiled a table especially for you perennial plants, which displays plant species and varieties, sizes, their relationship to light, watering and growth rate. I hope this will help you in creating your own original rock garden.

Of course, that's not all possible types plants that are used on the alpine hill. These, in my opinion, are the most interesting and deserve your attention.

Editor Rock garden and rock garden 7208

Blooming from early spring to late autumn, the alpine hill is a source of pride and trouble for the gardener. Beauty brought to life with your own hands seems simple and natural, but behind this lies work multiplied by creativity. The more natural the alpine slide looks at the dacha, the more effort its creator put into it.

The idea to create a corner at the dacha wildlife very tempting. The ideal composition is a combination of stones and plants. Well-chosen variations resemble a mountain landscape. Exist certain rules arranging alpine slides with your own hands, but this only applies to installation technology. Visible top part- the process of personal creativity. The gardener can rely on recommendations, however, he will receive only his final result. No two alpine coasters are alike. This is always a manifestation of individuality. Presence of one or more large stones required condition for composition. This emphasizes the desire to resemble a mountain peak. A country slide can be no more than two meters high. The slopes are planted with low-growing evergreen and seasonally flowering plants.

The main misconception of novice gardeners is the idea that a pile of stones, half covered with fertile soil and covered with a plant carpet, can already claim to be an alpine hill. I would like to emphasize once again that making an organic composition with your own hands is a creative, labor-intensive process associated with financial costs.

The rock garden has a history

The mention of the Alps suggests that the idea was born to create a mountain landscape in the garden somewhere in Europe. But that's not true. The Japanese are rightfully considered the ancestors of stone gardens. It was they who discovered to the world the art of combining the hardness of stone with the tenderness of flowers. Spectacular rock gardens on distant islands Rising Sun known and described thousands of years ago. This idea came to civilized Europe in the 16th century, and to Russia only in the 18th century.

What is a rockery?

Rockery is a composition of stones and plants, where main role The hard rock plays, and the grass and flowers serve as the background. Only one type of stone is used here. They are arranged randomly or folded with your own hands in parallel rows into low walls. The illusion of a rocky mountain environment appears.

In a rock garden, plants play the main role. It is their beauty among the stones that attracts the eye.

You should not confuse these concepts and know what exactly you want: a rock garden or a rock garden.

The main green components of a rock garden

Characteristics for all herbs and flowers:

• ease of care;
• short stature;
• survivability in unfavorable conditions: with excess water and in case of drought.

You can change the look of your flower bed every year by planting annuals with your own hands. But it is better to immediately focus on perennial specimens. Then every year the appearance will become more and more attractive. You should take into account the seasonal flowering of each flowerbed inhabitant and select a variety of specimens.

In the natural environment there are several representatives of wild flora that have long been cultivated as garden plants.

Suitable for an alpine slide:

• edelweiss; a romantic symbol of love that overcomes all obstacles; frost-resistant perennial; spreads along the ground in small mats; flowering season - early and mid-summer;
• young or stone rose; a flower with earthy, fleshy leaves; grows quickly between stones; flowers are light purple; resistant to any weather changes;
• lumbago; a small perennial from the buttercup family; blooms very first; grows well;
• sedum; presented in several varieties; spreads beautifully along the ground with creeping stems, destroying weeds around itself; changes color when exposed to the sun;
• saxifrage; loves northern or shaded slopes; weaves a green flowering rug even over stones;
• crocus; small onion stars of a wide variety of colors; bloom from March to May; reproduce well;
• dwarf barberry; refers to a type of shrub; spreads along the ground; suitable for the lower tier; in spring it pleases with blossoms, in autumn with red berries;
• juniper; evergreen low growing bush; can serve as the center of the composition; unpretentious and stable.

Alpine aster, dwarf barberry, and aquilegia are also used; phlox; Japanese spirea. All plants need time to express themselves in all their glory. By using multi-tiered plantings, you will be able to achieve better results.

Selecting a location

It is advisable to designate a spacious, well-lit corner for the rock garden. The flowerbed should be visible from all sides. Beauty created with your own hands needs to be demonstrated.

The composition looks more natural in spacious places: in the center of the garden, between paths, like an independent flowerbed. The location in the corner, between trees and buildings will not allow you to fully show all the beauty of the creation.

If one of the slopes of the slide is shaded, this is not a reason to be upset. You will have to choose plants for which such conditions are the most comfortable.

Drainage is a necessary procedure for soil health

It is necessary to take into account the nature of the soil. sandy soil better and is a natural drainage. There will be no problems with excess moisture. For clay soil and clean, rich chernozem requires a mandatory layer of drainage from any comfortable materials. The work is simple, done with your own hands.

Can be positioned drainage system along the entire perimeter of the base. If liquid accumulation is not a problem in your area, just dig a few holes.

The equipment technology is simple:

• remove a layer of soil to a depth of 30 cm;
• fill in 20 cm of crushed stone or gravel; any small construction waste will do;
• Ideally, it is better to cover the drainage with a layer of geosynthetic textile; it allows water to pass through, but does not allow even the smallest particles of soil to escape with the liquid; separates the layers and prevents them from mixing; soil subsidence is eliminated;
• then a 10 cm layer of sand is poured;
• layer of earth.

Each part of this cake needs to be well watered after filling.

Soil mixture

To form the best natural base, combine equal parts of purified and sifted earth, coarse sand and dry humus.

If this is the first experiment at the base of a rock garden, then its height is desirable no more than 1 m.

Laying stones

Three tiers are enough. At the stage of forming an earthen mound, large specimens are placed in the lower tier so that they look out of the ground.

After this, you need to take a break from work for two weeks. During this time, the soil will settle and become compacted. Problem areas will appear.

Then begins the creative process of laying stones in tiers with your own hands. Remember that the natural environment is being formed. The stones should not lie on the surface, but seem to look out of the ground, forming a single whole with it. There is no need to rush and maintain symmetry. Change, move, flip until you get something you like.

The principle of placing tiers is a pyramid. Small samples should rest securely on the lower large ones. It depends on taste, but it is advisable to select specimens that are uniform in structure and color.

You can draw a diagram of an alpine slide, top view. Then it will be easier to do what you want in practice with your own hands.

Construction of the summit

This is the final stage construction work. There are several options:

• put on top, massive beautiful stone; it will protect the slide from surface erosion;
• create a mini-pyramid with your own hands with a hollow middle and plant flowers there;
• decorate a crown from small but attractive samples.

It is better to wait a week after construction is completed. Next, start planting the green inhabitants.

And some more tips:

• do not use slides to decorate artificial materials, garden sculptures, and inappropriate plants; the task of obtaining a corner of natural nature should be paramount;
• mountain compositions look great on the edge of lawns;
• it is more convenient to fill the slide with flowers from above;
• fertilizers should be applied in limited quantities, especially when planting; plants must take root on their own; fertilizing is necessary after the third year;
• small voids and gaps will periodically form; fill them with a mixture of clay soil and peat;
• Always water the hill from the bottom; impregnated lower layers will not allow soil and microelements to be washed out from above.