Enhancing your garden with rocks, and whimsy

I like rocks in my garden, and I like a touch of whimsy. Done correctly, it's wonderful, done incorrectly, it's a disaster. So here are a few thoughts.

I have very few decorative rocks - most of them are meant to blend in with the garden, with ordinary color and texture. The exceptions are my petrified forest rocks, which are meant to be displayed, and are right up close so people can see them. On a regular basis I clean them a bit, and even put some furniture polish on them (not so much to make them shiny, but enough to brighten up the color just a bit). I found a little plastic lizard at the Dollar Store, and he seems to set them off nicely. If you just glance at him, he looks kinda real, but you don't have to look too closely to see that he's plastic. I'm not trying to fool anyone, I'm just adding some whimsy, and I very much dislike the overly cartoony stuff that you often see.

Plants just look better framed with rocks, it just adds to the natural look of a garden. The trick is to not make it look like there's a pattern - random is a more natural look that rocks lined up like tin soldiers. Or worse yet, I've seen rocks placed in such a way that it looks like there's a grave there. Creepy!

My recommendation is to dig the rocks in a bit, as if they were sticking up in a craggy way. And then surround them with river rocks, which will look as if water flowed there naturally. When leaves and such fall in the cracks it will look even more natural.

So get some rocks, and wander around the Dollar Store - you never know what you'll find! But please walk past the pink flamingos!