How To Make A Rock Garden Without Plants [Inc. Pictures To Inspire You!]

A rock garden is a common landscaping design consisting of rocks and plants that one would usually find in mountains. However, some people prefer to have a rock arrangement without plants, and you might be wondering how you can create such an arrangement for your home garden. In this article, we will discuss all the necessary information, including a couple of ideas that can inspire your own rock garden design.

To create your own rock garden without adding plants, you can borrow inspiration from the designs of a traditional Japanese zen garden. Zen gardens may incorporate plants into their designs, but this type of arrangement can completely forgo plants. Zen gardens also have non-plant elements which allow you to create a rock garden design without having to include plants.

Rock gardens without plants can be easily created with essentially any element that you would want to add in place of plants. Designing is subjective and it will be up to your personal preference what you will add to your design. Continue reading below as we discuss how you can prepare your space for a rock garden, as well as some layout samples to inspire your own design.

How Do I Create A Rock Garden Without Plants?

Rock gardens, also known as rockery or rockwork, are usually a part of a larger garden landscaping design. A rock garden, as the name suggests, is a garden of rocks. The main elements of a rock garden are rocks, gravel, and Alpine plants, or plants that often exist in a mountainous setting.

While the design of a rock garden includes plants, it is still possible to create a rock arrangement without adding any greeneries. Just as we said before, designing is subjective and it is up to your personal preference what you want to add or remove from your rock garden.

Since rock gardens originally include plants, you can choose to borrow design ideas from the traditional Japanese zen garden. Zen gardens are essentially what a rock garden is, except this type of design can stretch as far as completely removing the plants in the arrangement. Below is a simple guide on how you can create a rock garden without plants.

Plan Your Design

To begin creating a rock garden, you must first have the entire blueprint of the garden ready. This also includes the actual landscaping of the area, in which you will decide if you want some elevation in the ground, or leveled soil will do. Figure out what is included in your garden, and what will replace the plants in the area.

Prepare The Area

Before placing the rocks in your garden, prepare the ground on where the rocks will sit. Sandy soil or any well-draining soil will support a rock garden well. Moss and any other type of plants growing around the area should also be properly removed to avoid them from growing back in your plantless rock garden.

Arrange The Rock Garden's Elements

Once the area for the rock garden is prepared, you can begin to start arranging the rocks in whichever way you want. If gravel or sand is involved in the design, make sure to include that before adding the rocks on top.

What Can I Include In A Rock Garden Without Plants?

Rock gardens typically have plants. To create a rock garden without plants, you can take some inspiration from the different non-plant features of a zen garden. Below is a list of elements you can use if you want to create a rock garden without plants.

Rocks

A rock garden's main focal point is plants and rocks. In common rock garden designs, these rocks operate as more of an arrangement where plants will be introduced. This means that the rocks often included in rock gardens are arranged as more of a surface for plants, instead of being the focal point of the design.

Common rock garden designs make use of the different shapes and sizes of the plants to create a visually pleasing contrast against the rocks around them. This results in an interesting design compared to a rock arranged without the plants.

To keep the visually pleasing contrast created by shapes and sizes, you can choose to substitute the plants by adding rocks of varying shapes, textures, and sizes.

The rocks included in a zen garden are called Ishi, which directly translates to "stone" in Japanese. In a zen garden, rocks are the most important part of the arrangement.

You can choose to borrow the design of Ishi in your plantless rock garden. In order to steer away from a monotonous look, choose rocks of different shapes and sizes. Mixing smooth rocks with ragged rocks will also showcase the rock's untouched appearance and will give your rock garden a more natural, calming design.

Water

Just like rocks, water is another important element in a zen garden. You might have noticed that the pictures we included above had multiple circular patterns around the rocks. These patterns on the gravel represent natural water, and it is meant to symbolize the ripples of water around mountains, which are represented by the stones.

Due to the limited variety of elements that make up a zen garden, it might appear as a minimalistic arrangement for some. However, you can choose to include actual running water in your plantless rock garden to add some movement to your design.

Unless you overdo the water element, actual running water will not affect the calming effect of a zen garden. In fact, aside from the symbolism present in the pattern on the gravel, actual running water is also a common element in a zen garden. Water is considered a representation of purification and cleansing and the constant flow of water in a zen garden is said to symbolize the flow of life. 

Lanterns/Lights

Another natural element you can incorporate in your plantless rock garden is fire. This does not necessarily mean actual, physical fire, although fire is the traditional method of lighting a zen garden lantern. Adding lanterns to your garden will provide illumination to your rock arrangement at night, and their lights will create a performance of shadows around your garden.

Zen garden lanterns are included in, or around the rock arrangement to represent the virtue of enlightenment. This could also simply provide light around your rock arrangement if that is your preference.

Traditional zen gardens usually include stone lanterns with other religious ornamentals with the intention of relaying each element's representation to the admirer of the garden. Because of this, it is important to understand that some of the elements that we can borrow from zen gardens have a deep meaning and are not advised to be used simply for the design.

Lanterns and lights can be incorporated into other elements of the zen garden. You can choose to have lanterns fixed inside rocks or other natural materials for the garden.

Just as we mentioned before, the design is ultimately up to the preference of the garden's owner. Although, proper discretion is advised, and we should not simply take elements from a zen garden without being aware of and respecting what it symbolizes.

Ornaments

For gardens that are created to contribute to the overall aesthetic value of a house, focal points are important to the arrangement. In a garden without plants, you can choose to add just about anything you want as a focal point of your rock garden.

Your plantless rock garden's focal point could be a large rock among significantly smaller rocks. It could also be a display of running water or an arrangement of illuminating lanterns along the patterned gravel.

You can also choose to include an ornament as the focal point of your garden. Below are a couple of examples of ornaments that you can add to your rock garden without including plants.

• Statues
• Sculptures
• Decorative pathways
• Stone arrangements

Which Gravel Is Best For A Plantless Rock Garden?

The most commonly used gravel in a plantless rock garden is the Shirakawa-Suna gravel. Made up of black mica, white feldspar, granite, and quartz, Shirakawa-Suna gravel is used in a lot of zen gardens for its muted, calming color palette.

Turkey grit and pea gravel are also good for rock gardens due to their small grain and muted colors. Other gravel can also be used in a plantless rock garden, but the preferred size of the grain should be around 2mm.

To Wrap Up

You can create your own plantless rock garden by taking inspiration from zen gardens. Zen gardens include a lot of non-plant elements that can give character to your rock garden without using any plants.

In this article, we discussed the simple process you can follow in order to build your own plantless rock garden. We also discussed zen garden elements that can replace plants. Make sure to choose the best arrangement for your rock garden so that you can enjoy its peaceful design for many years to come.

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