Garden Of Stones In The Interior - Features Of Creation And Choice Of Plants. Care. Photo

2023 Author: Ava Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 07:13

The desire for unusual solutions in the design of rooms is reflected in recent years in the landscaping of offices and ordinary living spaces. Collections of plants in separate pots are not only actively moving from window sills to interiors, but are gradually being replaced by their alternative solutions. Desert-type florariums that do not require painstaking care, luxurious flower showcases, paludariums and installations on driftwood, mini-greenhouses - all this is becoming popular. At the same time, today more and more attention is paid to the once exclusive luxury item - indoor rocky gardens, rock gardens and rockeries.

Content:

• Room format for rocky gardens
• Types of indoor rock gardens
• Project development and installation
• Conditions and care of plants in indoor rock garden
• Plants for indoor alpine slides

Room format for rocky gardens

Indoor-size Alpine slides are one of the types of decorative compositions in landscaping, in which stones and plants appear in their unity. Unlike garden rock gardens and rockeries, indoor ones are not so close to imitating the wild, although they are still inspired by mountain landscapes.

These are the most aesthetic, original and catchy compositions that act as a completely unusual room decoration. They are often called an alternative to fireplaces, but this statement is erroneous: rock gardens are one of the options for organizing landscaping, creating the effect of communication with wildlife and a winter garden, but retaining the style of highly decorative and artistic solutions.

Indoor rock gardens are an alternative to winter gardens, combined with a living room, a corner of nature in the form of a rocky garden, which resembles both in atmosphere and in general effect garden rockeries.

Indoor rock garden can be different in terms of both size and place in the interior. A small mobile rockery or a composition in a portable container and flower box, objects replacing dividers and partitions or rock gardens that can occupy a significant part of the walls - there are a lot of options. It all depends on the place that they want to allocate for them.

A rock garden can become an alternative to more familiar solutions for arranging non-functional walls or corners, but it can also become the center of everyone's attention, a place for relaxation and the main decoration of the room. The only thing that should not be doubted for sure is that this landscaping option is suitable for those who love stone, want to bring it into their home as much as possible, as well as for fans of rocky gardens, who want to admire their beauty even in the interior.

Types of indoor rock gardens

Mini-rock garden, or portable stone slide

Such rock gardens and rockeries are created in containers - large, decorative flower girls or wide and flat pots, in special stone vases, presented in large numbers in garden centers. Their diameter allows you to arrange several types of plants and make the surface of rockeries with several levels of height.

In fact, this is a large florarium that more closely mimics nature, in which vessels with miniature plants are buried in the decorative soil or crops with an alpine appearance are planted in the usual soil for succulents, with a decorative stone covering in the form of mulch and several stones to emphasize the character of the composition.

In the creation of such a rock garden, they are repelled by plants - first, large, tall species are placed, then ground covers, and then stones are placed from large to small, creating a natural imitation of mountainous reliefs.

Stationary rock garden on a frame or a complete imitation of a slide on an insulating base

Such compositions are often built in corners, creating from concrete, gypsum, brick, expanded polystyrene or insulating foam the base of a “slide” with holes for planting plants, which is then pasted over with decorative stone, creating an imitation of rocks.

Such rock gardens can be combined with mini-reservoirs, indoor fountains, "play" with decorative lighting. The main task is to cover the floor and walls with a protective coating that can withstand both high humidity and the weight of materials, to model a relief from selected materials or improvised means and cover it with stones and pebbles to imitate rocks. Niches are left for plants, in which they will then be planted or displayed in pots.

Stone wall

View of indoor alpine slides with a rock-like structure at the base, flowing into a stone-paved wall or part of a wall with special supports for plants. The stone walls are landscaped with the help of not only conventionally alpine plants, but also lianas. The use of wall stone (artificial or natural) allows you to raise the rock garden to new heights and create a whole corner of the stone jungle.

Alpine plant rack

Reinforced structure with shelves of sufficient width for the installation of containers or with special pallet structures for filling with gravel, stone chips, sand, decorative soil; pots with plants are placed in it.

Indoor greenhouse, raised "bed" or "sandbox"

A large floor container, most often stationary, filled with sand or gravel, in which pots with plants (with additional decor) are placed. In fact, such a rock garden is an analogue of decorative flower girls. Plants are placed in a box or container, carefully choosing materials to fill the space between them.

Flower showcase or "room in a room"

Rockery in the form of a glass aquarium or box, in which stones are combined with moisture-loving plants with a tropical character, creating a kind of closed object with high humidity. Often built as an alternative to mountain-style aquariums with fully artificial lighting inside windowless rooms.

Project development and installation

For the construction of indoor rock gardens of a non-portable nature, it is better to contact specialists or carefully study all issues related to the creation of massive stone structures, insulation and protection of floor and wall coverings. In addition to choosing stones of different fractions and rocks, to create an imitation of rocky landscapes, you will need insulating materials, and construction adhesives with assembly tools, and a base-pallet, fasteners, containers for plants, fillers, decorative paints and means for additional masking. The more complex the rock garden itself, the better you need to think over the whole system.

The installation of lamps, lighting, the introduction of a reservoir and a fountain requires carefully thought out insulation and compliance with safety measures. Insulation over the entire area of the rock garden, which protects the floor covering, high-quality waterproof and wear-resistant materials, protective coatings to prevent damage under the weight of the stone are questions that are best left to specialists at least at the stage of project development.

Conditions and care of plants in indoor rock garden

Plants are most often planted not in the structure itself, but in small pots, which are placed in prepared niches or buried in rocky ground. Large plants are placed in larger pots, picking up containers or decorating them additionally so that they fit into the overall look of the composition. For "alpine" plants, natural clay containers are preferred. At the bottom of the containers, a drainage layer with a height of at least 1/3 of the pot must be laid.

From a practical point of view, there are only two key conditions for growing plants that need to be taken care of when creating an indoor rocky garden:

1. Bright lighting. Indoor rock garden and rockery plants need the brightest possible light. If the compositions are constructed as a decorative interior decoration, then, in addition to the actual aesthetic parameters and the selection of the basis, you will have to take care of creating a supplementary lighting system, which will be equal to the usual solar windowsill. Additional supplementary lighting in winter is required for all room-format rock gardens, which cannot be moved to a more illuminated place.
2. Air access. Stagnant air, lack of ventilation will destroy crops in rocky gardens. Draft tolerance should be considered for each specific species. But regular ventilation or additional ventilation is a must.

The substrate for plants in a room rocky hill is chosen from among light, loose and breathable soil mixtures. A special succulent soil or a versatile substrate with additional loosening agents is the best choice. If there are sufficient resources and components, you can make a special soil mixture of turf soil, peat, sand, fine stone chips and compost or humus in equal parts. The reaction of the soil, as well as its composition, when growing in pots, and not planting in a common container, is selected according to the individual requirements of a particular type of plant.

Plants in mini-rock gardens are grown without an annual transplant. The change of containers is carried out only when the plants completely master the space allotted to them. With an obvious need for rejuvenation and filling the earthen coma with roots, the top layer of the soil must be replaced annually with a fertile and high-quality substrate. The topsoil is replaced in early spring.

If it is necessary to transplant plants in an indoor rock garden, a separation must be carried out: most often it is not possible to increase the diameter of the pots, therefore only a decrease in the volume of the plants themselves and a change in the substrate allow the compositions to be kept attractive.

Decorative mulching is a must even for plants in separate pots. The soil surface is covered with stone chips, pebbles, coarse sand, which allow the plants to "merge" with the rest of the stone elements of the composition. The mulch is carefully removed when replacing the topsoil and replanting.

Plants for indoor alpine slides

For the device of indoor rock gardens and rockeries, ordinary indoor plants are often chosen. But in this case, the stone entourage is just a decor for an ordinary collection. To create a true indoor-format alpine slide, you need to take care of a more careful choice of plant species.

For rocky gardens, special, hardy, potted plants are used that look like alpine and mountainous, corresponding to the design idea. Conventionally, such can be considered all medium-sized, hardy crops, which in nature prefer to grow on rocks, including in the extreme conditions of a mountain environment.

In indoor rocky gardens they look great:

• succulents;
• cereals;
• bulbous plants;
• bonsai, dwarf indoor conifers and shrubs;
• early flowering garden perennials, combining the status of indoor and garden plants.

Any indoor succulents - from "living stones" to fat women and cacti, feel great in such compositions. Haworthia, faucaria, saxifrage, echeveria, sedum, aloe, lithops - these are just a few species with which to create indoor rockeries.

Sansevierias will not be lost here either, from large indoor stars ivy, dracaena, crotones will perfectly fit into the design of stone gardens. In indoor rockeries, rheo and shefflers, areca, aeonium, fatsia, begonias, adiantums, compact varieties of dieffenbachia, pittosporum, nephrolepsis, cicas, ficuses, pelargoniums, trachycarpus, gesneria, balsamines, calamus look charming.

Moss is one of the main decorating tools in indoor rock garden and is an excellent tool to create natural transitions and "play" with aging. Moss can be purchased at any hobby store, gradually spraying it onto the desired surfaces.

Indoor rock garden can be used as a field for experiments with those plants that in the garden need the construction of special shelters for the period of summer dormancy or have low winter hardiness. If the rock garden is not miniature and during its creation they took care of lighting and other "greenhouse" nuances, then many cultures from among the rare and valuable collection items can be planted in them.

In indoor rock gardens from among garden plants, cyclamens, daffodils, anemone, veronica, carnations, cinquefoil, young, muscari, immortelles, cassiopeia, forget-me-nots, smolens, tulips, sedum, moricia, carpet phloxes, crocuses, ryadchiks, ramdogs, rhodiums, redwoods, dionems, cyananthus, lewisia.

Saxifrage is chosen from among indoor species, but when creating large compositions, you can try to plant pillow garden specimens. Perfect in indoor rock gardens primrose.

Alpine plants and the main stars of indoor rock gardens have many disadvantages. Almost always, these crops are plants that go through a full dormant period and lose their decorative effect for the winter. By selecting in equal numbers herbaceous bulbous and seasonal plants with succulents and truly indoor crops that look attractive even in winter, they compensate for the death of the aerial parts of the bulbous and shedding of the leaves of some herbaceous stars.