Garden Stones and Landscaping Rocks in the garden

Knowing the difference between garden stones and landscaping rocks will most likely depend on the extent of your gardening stone and rock knowledge.

It can get mighty confusing!

Garden stones, cobbles, boulders, pebbles or landscape rocks? – You decide…

In the UK, when we talk of garden stones, sometimes called pebbles, we generally mean either rounded stones up to a diameter of around 20/25 Cm’s, anything over this size falls into the cobbles, small and large category. (particle sizes)

Pebbles and cobbles, normally rounded and smooth, associated with water in some way, river bed or sea shore. Cobbles can be more irregular in shape.

Garden stones can also refer to shingle, gravel and chippings (small stones or broken pieces often used as a ground covering, shingle and gravel being more rounded and chippings usually being broken pieces), in various colours, types and sizes. But all can be called stone.

Larger garden stones, boulders, when well formed and nicely rounded can easily fit into the description above but there is a point, a kind of grey area of crossover on the term used if a boulder is not perfectly rounded, if it is knobbled or chipped or in some other way misshaped – Then it becomes, as if it were downgraded in some way, a rock.

With landscaping rocks, we mean those jagged more irregular forms, large and small (some absolutely huge) used primarily in garden rockeries and landscaping projects.

Recently, whilst talking with an American on the subject of garden stones and landscaping rocks, they referred to shingle and small pebble ground covering as ‘small landscaping rocks’.

One other important point to make is, all garden stones and landscape rock, in order to qualify as such must be natural and NOT man made.

Knowing your garden stones and landscaping rocks in the garden, you had better get it right!

If all of that is not confusing enough then here is a list of online dictionary definitions:-

Stone 

• the hard substance, formed of mineral matter, of which rocks consist.
• a rock or particular piece or kind of rock, as a boulder or piece of agate.
• a piece of rock quarried and worked into a specific size and shape for a particular purpose: paving stone; building stone.
• a small piece of rock, as a pebble.

Boulder

• a detached and rounded or worn rock, especially a large one.

Shingle

• small, water worn stones or pebbles such as lie in loose sheets or beds on a beach.
• a beach, riverbank, or other area covered with such small pebbles or stones.

Gravel 

• small stones and pebbles, or a mixture of these with sand.

Chippings 

• a small piece of rock removed by chopping, cutting, or breaking

If you are considering building a rockery or doing any kind of stone or rock work in the garden then make sure that you have some good gardening tools available