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Landscaping Stone
If you have interest in using
landscaping stone in your yard, garden,
koi pond or walkway, don’t limit
yourself to the traditional. Consider
finding or shopping for unique stones to
add flair or accent to your plans.
Landscaping stone can be versatile, used
for simple decoration or as a foundation
for much more.
Some of the uses for landscaping stone
include flooring, such as for a patio,
foundations for outbuildings, such as a
gazebo, or even outbuildings completely
made of stone. Fireplaces look great in
stone (just watch out for river rock;
pockets of steam could heat up and
explode in a fire pit or fireplace) as
do bases for planters. Entire columns
could be made of stone, either as end
caps for a stone wall or to support
lamps or planters.
Whatever you eventual use of landscaping
stone, seek out the unusual. Below are
just two examples of what you might
find.
Geodes
Geodes, on the surface, seem like
unremarkable, round, fist sized lumps of
white or tan rock. They could serve well
in a planter or flowerbed for a little
hardscaping, but the real gem about
these rocks lays inside. Some geodes are
lined inside with layered siliceous
material of various color or even clear
quartz crystals; the effect is a wavy,
smooth, crystalline surface. You may not
have a diamond-saw handy to slice one
open, but you should be able to find
nice specimens in a rock shop. They make
great bookends for indoors, and can
frame a showcase plant in your garden.
Thunder Eggs
It is almost worth using Thunder Eggs as
a landscaping stone just for the great
conversation possibilities. If the name
was not unusual enough, it is also the
State Rock of Oregon (although it is
more a stone than a rock, but I suppose
State Stone is asking too much.) Thunder
Eggs are very much akin to geodes, as
they are a shell filled with agate. They
are different from geodes in that they
have a solid center, often displaying a
great contrast between the rocky shell
of brown and the milky white and clear
crystal center. Even solid, undivided
Thunder Eggs are interesting to look at,
with bubbly protrusions that do give the
appearance of some strange egg.
Check with rock shops that cater to rock
hounds for some unique finds. While the
expensive might prohibit you from paving
your patio with Thunder Eggs, a
combination of a few unique specimens
with more traditional landscaping stone
would work well with almost any plan.
