| It's time to break out of the everyday | | | | garden does have to be planned carefully. |
| landscaping design. What does your lawn | | | | Rock doesn't absorb water - so any rain |
| consist of? Lots of green grass - that takes | | | | run-off will go straight into your lawn and |
| a lot of time to mow and a lot of water to | | | | does need to be carefully drained off. Don't |
| look healthy, trees and shrubs. Perhaps some | | | | put your rock garden over electrical or phone |
| flowerbeds flanking the house itself. | | | | lines, either. |
| | | | |
| But there's so much more you can do with your | | | | You may think that a rock garden is |
| landscaping, if you just decide to do things | | | | equivalent to a Japanese garden, but that |
| a bit differently. | | | | isn't necessarily the case. The Japanese |
| | | | garden combines three elements: stone which |
| In desert locations, of course, like Arizona | | | | represents mountains or islands, water - |
| and Mexico, why bother to try to force grass | | | | representing purity, and plants. A Zen garden |
| to grow at all? Why not simply cover your | | | | is what most people think of when they hear |
| yard with attractive, ornamental rock and | | | | the term Japanese garden - a stretch of white |
| stone, with a few shrubs. Or as the joke has | | | | sand with black rocks placed strategically |
| it, "I'm retired, I've mowed my last lawn!" | | | | about, and one meditates by raking the sand |
| The reason is simple - you may think water is | | | | smooth. |
| a renewable resource - but it doesn't renew | | | | |
| as fast as mankind is consuming it. In desert | | | | There are two ways to install a rock |
| states where water comes from below ground | | | | garden...one would be to make the rock look |
| aquifers, the level of this fresh-water | | | | like a natural outcropping of bedrock...used |
| source is lowering every year, and rainwater | | | | to cut off an inconvenient slope. The more |
| cannot replenish that level fast enough. | | | | usual design is to pile up the stones - both |
| | | | large and small - in harmonious |
| Even if you don't live in a desert climate, | | | | groupings...and if you simply must have |
| there's no reason why you can't make a rock | | | | greenery, leave small gaps between the rocks |
| garden - either large or small - in part of | | | | into which the plants may be placed. |
| your yard. Such a garden will cut down on the | | | | |
| time needed to mow your lawn, there'll be no | | | | Surf the web to get ideas for how to design |
| need to spread pesticides around, and it will | | | | your rock garden, and venture far and wide, |
| be a quiet and restful place around which to | | | | into sites from Japan and India as well as |
| sit. | | | | the United States. You'll find beauty |
| | | | everywhere. |
| Like any other landscaping element, a rock | | | | |