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.