Landscaping rocks $$

[namasteak]

Would you spend $900 on them for 2 large beds in the front of your house?

I would like to put grey river rock in our front yard but can’t get over the price! We have spent $460 already (2 large pots and plants) and still need about $200 more in plants. Plus whatever we do for a ground cover - be it mulch or rock or ....

Maybe I’m not just naive but hesitant to spend the $ because we are getting new fence soon too.

[heygrey]

Nope. No to the price, and no to rocks.

We have grey rocks in our large front bed - bought the house in October so this is what we inherited. I would have tried to work with it, but I hate that it is never clean. There was a cedar bush that we pulled out and all the dead cedar is sprinkled over the rock. Anything that falls off the plants just sits on top. With mulch you can rake it over each season and freshen it up with a new top layer every few years. I've walked around our neighbourhood eyeing other flower beds, the ones with rocks always look unkempt even in lots where they very obvious take care of their lawn.

Thankfully we needed rock as a base layer for a patio we're putting in, so we'll pull the rock off and reuse it, then lay mulch for the flower bed.

[lavender444]

That's crazy! Is that price including labor? Regardless I would prefer mulch over rock, so will your plants.

[lessel]

I paid about $600 a decade ago for load of ‘egg rocks’ to lay in a large bed as well as a few larger decorative rocks.

The rocks worked for the style of the house and landscaping, but hot damn were they a PITA to maintain. We put down layers of weed barrier before the rocks but the weeds were like super-weeds. Then it’s constantly pulling leaves and pine needles and shit out of there. It was just way more high-maintenance than we anticipated. And they’d just like disappear over time too. So we’d have to add more otherwise you’d see these gaps where you could see the crappy weed barrier.

[freshsqueezed]

What are you paying per ton? There is a vast difference in price per ton depending on which rock you choose. For example, around here you can choose a stone that is $125 per ton but could also do stone for $30 a ton by changing the color.

[namasteak]

Mar 30, 2021 23:33:27 GMT -5 lavender444 said:

That's crazy! Is that price including labor? Regardless I would prefer mulch over rock, so will your plants.

Not including labor

[namasteak]

Mar 31, 2021 8:13:25 GMT -5 freshsqueezed said:

What are you paying per ton? There is a vast difference in price per ton depending on which rock you choose. For example, around here you can choose a stone that is $125 per ton but could also do stone for $30 a ton by changing the color.

$8/30lbs is the best I’ve found so far

DH prefers mulch but I prefer rock so I wanted to post and see if I was crazy for considering paying for it .

[freshsqueezed]

Mar 31, 2021 8:20:02 GMT -5 namasteak said:

Mar 31, 2021 8:13:25 GMT -5 freshsqueezed said:

What are you paying per ton? There is a vast difference in price per ton depending on which rock you choose. For example, around here you can choose a stone that is $125 per ton but could also do stone for $30 a ton by changing the color.

$8/30lbs is the best I’ve found so far

DH prefers mulch but I prefer rock so I wanted to post and see if I was crazy for considering paying for it .

Am I doing the math right?! - that comes out to over $533 per ton. That is beyond insane. We prefer stone too. Mulch is an every year thing and just blows away. We have purchased stone a number of times. I’ve never seen prices like you are talking.

[circa1978]

Without labor, that's nuts. Have you looked at options at local hardware stores or Home Depot. We did the entire front of our house laying it down ourselves two years ago. I'm team rock for life. I don't garden and it is so much easier - and eventually cost-effective at what we paid - than putting down mulch all the time.

[purplinsky]

Mar 31, 2021 9:12:57 GMT -5 freshsqueezed said:

Mar 31, 2021 8:20:02 GMT -5 namasteak said:

$8/30lbs is the best I’ve found so far

DH prefers mulch but I prefer rock so I wanted to post and see if I was crazy for considering paying for it .

Am I doing the math right?! - that comes out to over $533 per ton. That is beyond insane. We prefer stone too. Mulch is an every year thing and just blows away. We have purchased stone a number of times. I’ve never seen prices like you are talking.

Just curious, namasteak, where are you looking for rock that you're getting a price that high? In my last house I put rock in the backyard before selling and spent around $200 on 5 tons of rock and then paid $50 for delivery (they dumped it in a pile in the street in front of my house). I went through a local-ish (they have something like 30+ locations across the states in my region) and they didn't even price out by the pound, just by the ton. If you want rock I would do a bit more research and see if there are any similar companies in your area. I'm in the southwest, so rock is pretty standard in most people's yards while mulch is pretty much non-existent here.

[namasteak]

Mar 31, 2021 9:48:12 GMT -5 circa1978 said:

Without labor, that's nuts. Have you looked at options at local hardware stores or Home Depot. We did the entire front of our house laying it down ourselves two years ago. I'm team rock for life. I don't garden and it is so much easier - and eventually cost-effective at what we paid - than putting down mulch all the time.

That is at Home Depot!

But y’all I did the math wrong 🤦🏻‍♀️I put in 7 feet wide because there is 3.5 feet on each bed. So it’s about $550 which is still a lot but not insane

[namasteak]

[whattheheck]

Are these beds that abut the house? I feel like when I asked this question a while ago treedimensional advised against rocks for pest/termite reasons.

[namasteak]

Mar 31, 2021 11:04:12 GMT -5 whattheheck said:

Are these beds that abut the house? I feel like when I asked this question a while ago treedimensional advised against rocks for pest/termite reasons.

Yes they are.

We have a pier & beam foundation if that makes a difference and the rocks would be below the foundation vents.

treedimensional

[lessel]

Do you have any landscaping supply places nearby? We went to like a place that just sold rock and stuff. They sold it by the scoop, which, depending on the rock was like a ton or half ton. And sold larger rocks by like the pallet or something. HD, Lowe's or similar I'd all expect to be pretty high.

[namasteak]

Mar 31, 2021 11:44:01 GMT -5 lessel said:

Do you have any landscaping supply places nearby? We went to like a place that just sold rock and stuff. They sold it by the scoop, which, depending on the rock was like a ton or half ton. And sold larger rocks by like the pallet or something. HD, Lowe's or similar I'd all expect to be pretty high.

I bet we do !

[namasteak]

Maybe I’ll just use them as a border like this but with smaller river rocks

Kind of like this but with a bed instead of sidewalk

[freshsqueezed]

Mar 31, 2021 11:13:23 GMT -5 namasteak said:

Mar 31, 2021 11:04:12 GMT -5 whattheheck said:

Are these beds that abut the house? I feel like when I asked this question a while ago treedimensional advised against rocks for pest/termite reasons.

Yes they are.

We have a pier & beam foundation if that makes a difference and the rocks would be below the foundation vents.

treedimensional

I thought it was just the opposite - that you are supposed to have a 1 foot drip border around house of rocks/stone and avoid mulch for pest reasons.

ETA - I don't know what the other person said previously this is my understanding in general

[namasteak]

I could do smaller rocks for only $250

[redheadk]

For the quantity you want, I’d go to a rock & mulch place. You can have them deliver, too. It should be cheaper. If you have any local nurseries, ask them for a recommendation.

[treedimensional]

The part about the price of rock varying greatly by type and color is 100% accurate.
The part about mulch: A study showed that rock (as mulch) is favorable to termites. The study didn't look into the reason, it just looked at termite movement and populations in types of mulches. The results were surprising to many as they contradicted popular opinion about what had been assumed to be an advantage of stone mulch. One guess was that stone mulch protects the termites from predation and allows them to get right up to the house with impunity. The study was done to see if there was any truth to the notion that wood mulch attracts termites or is sold with termites/eggs in it (both of those claims are scientifically baseless). Also studied: whether wood mulch increases fire risk (it doesn't, but rubber mulch does).
And if we can briefly discuss complaints about wood mulch washing or blowing away or needing to be done every year: not if it is maintained properly. Mulch should be watered. If there is adequate moisture, it will form mold mats that bind it together as it decomposes. Mold can't colonize your mulch if it's too dry, and it won't decompose, which you definitely WANT it to do because it improves the soil quality. Some types of wood products, like pine needles and cypress mulch, don't break down in this way but I'm referring to natural shredded wood and bark mulch. You DON'T have to re-do your mulch every year, if it is slightly damp and matted well, you can blow it or rake it GENTLY and top-dress it with pretty new mulch if you want it to look fresh again.

[mrspez07]

A couple of random thoughts:
River rock (larger rounded light grey, white type rocks) are more $ and harder to keep weeds out of.
Look into a granite in similar/preferred colors.
Shop at landscape supply yards, not big box stores for the best price. You are basically paying for bags of rock or mulch at Home Depot, they can dump a pile in your driveway for way less and no plastic!
2-4” depth of rock is recommended.

Really good wood mulch will stay put. CO gets a lot of wind and ours does great. Look for “gorilla hair” or ones that talk about meshing together or shredded. It should be stringy, not chips, those blow away. It basically flattens and creates a kind of mat.

In some native plant type forums I’m on, they do recommend a pea gravel or similar rock about 2” deep. No fabric underneath. This allows plants that drop seeds to self sow, but you need to be ok with that style/look.
If you do go with rock, leave a circle around the root zone on shrubs to then add wood mulch, it helps keep the roots cool.

[lilac05]

A landscaping place will be much cheaper for rocks than buying bags at Home Depot.

Do not get smaller rocks! Bigger ones look nicer and are more likely to stay where you want them.

I’d avoid a smaller rock edging. You’ll be picking up rocks in your yard all day, every day. We put brick edging around ours. I like the look of bigger rocks, but it wasn’t in the budget.

Our rock landscaping is my boys’ dream. They and their friends are ALWAYS messing with the rocks, looking for “valuable” rocks. This keeps them happy and occupied, but it also means that we find rocks EVERYWHERE.

Buy a leaf blower to help keep leaves out. And weeding in rocks sucks, but weed killer doesn’t really work since it can’t absorb into rocks...so it’s all by hand. (We have fabric, but it only does so much.)