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.