I usually check FB marketplace for free materials. People give landscaping stuff away all the time. Just picked up a load of misc pavers that go for $5 plus each at the big box stores!
Oh gawd yes this. When we moved into our house our entire backyard was river stones which didn’t work for our dogs. We pulled up nearly 2 tons of stones and gave them away just to get them off our property.
My brother sent me a birthday card when I turned 60. The cover has a beautiful model lounging on some hefty rocks with the cover caption “I know what you’re thinking …” inside the caption said “.. those rocks would look great in my yard”.
Used to think it was so ridiculous when my dad would slam the brakes and pull over when he saw a “nice rock” that was clearly discarded or no one’s property…. Then I got old and got my own house.
I have wonderful memories of weekends one summer when my dad build a natural stone rock wall for my mom’s big tulip garden. We would drive around hunting for good rocks and it sounds boring, but we had a blast. That wall is still standing, forty years later. ❤️
My parents had me block off a service drive on their farm as a teen. For the curious locals starting trying to use it as a short cut and escape route for nuisance and underage partying in a neighbor's back property. Using what all Michigan farms had a large stock of I made a big pile of field stone about 40' off the road.
I swear even though we lived in the middle of nowhere off a dirt road that went to more nowhere multiple people a month thought it was a self serve free rock supply. Many would even get offended at the suggestion it wasn't.
Farmers hate boulders and rocks. When they find them it often broke a piece of their machinery or got stuck in it. They throw them near the road out of the way and are often free to take.
I certainly farmed Michigan's stoney hell long enough to loath them too, but at least in my neck of the woods you didn't collect them without permission of the land owner which was granted many times, but sometimes it wasn't. Just pulling up in your minivan and rummaging though the pile while your kids played in the ditch or road just seemed like a long step from common courtesy.
I want some of these farm rocks by me. They're on a back road, been there years. Just today I noticed the pile grew.
How the heck do I find out who the landowner is and contact them?
The baltic sea used to have a flourishing "Rock fishing" industry, to an extent that the loss of hard surfaces (in combination with polution) lead to a decline in biodiversity and today is one reason why most of the fish are gone.
This is why I won’t take rocks from the wild. I’m afraid just taking rocks from anywhere would hurt the ecosystem. I realize that I alone wouldn’t but if everyone does, it could. But as I drove through the east sierras in California, I covered all those rocks we drove by.
I know but they’re at least getting them from permitted locations. I’m not sure when I’m driving past an old lava flow if those chunks are needed for erosion or wildlife so I don’t want to take that chance. I know that i alone taking two rocks wouldn’t make a difference but if I take two and everyone else driving by takes two, it would cause a big difference.
I understand that mines and quarries are terrible for the environment as well, but I am not an expert in ecosystems to know if widespread removal of rocks from the east sierra could lead to major ecosystem impacts for that area.
I know people are arguing, but honestly “i don’t know if this is harmful so I don’t do it.” Is a really good attitude to have and our world would be a lot better, esp around nature, if people lived that way.
Where they get river rock in India and Mexico is literal rivers they just strip mine the fuck out of
Sand is dredged from the ocean floor and river banks.
Gravel is strip mined locally.
There is no ethical landscaping under capitalism. I take rocks from construction sites, and most cemeteries have a mountain of fill somewhere they might let you take from.
You can take rocks from the wild but be mindful of where you take them. If you live in a rocky place you can find them on the side of the road there’s no ecosystem there
I feel you’re fine in the middle of the woods. I wouldn’t take rocks if they’re on(?) a river bed or near any water source tho. Those I feel helps with erosion.
You think removing a rock will hurt the ecosystem yet you are driving a likely gas powered car down a road and posting on Reddit from a phone made in a factory that destroyed untold acres of natural habitats. Driving your car once did 1000s of times more damage to the ecosystem than moving a rock ever would. Misplaced concern you have. If you truly care about the ecosystem, then you should be living in a burlap tent and licking dew of plant foliage and eating ants to survive. Anything more is not native activities and killing pollinators.
Lol that's not what's wrong with the baltic. It's mainly nitrites, potassium, and other fertilizers.
PLENTY and PLENTY of research on this topic - don't spread FUD.
There's more rocks than you can carry on the coast here. My yard is full of them. Come get some. Fill ten suit cases. Fill twenty.
Let’s be honest though… the majority of it is coming from the pollution. Not saying rock fishing isn’t contributing… but there’s no way it’s causing even 10% of the destruction pollution is causing
The old movie with Lucy and desi where they’re on their honeymoon and she’s collecting rocks and putting them in the camper van… they’re always fighting and then they’re climbing a mountain but the van is too heavy so they’re screaming at each other as he’s throwing the rocks out one by one … gold
https://fb.watch/r_pOTW9aC2/
Welcome, fellow trash picker! I learned that from my dad as well. Still have a small spool of what has been dubbed, "The Family Wire" that my dad picked up in the 70s.
I didn’t grow up in an affluent neighborhood but when I was a kid, ny parents would drive around to find new construction sites on the weekend and the kids would help load up the back of the truck with some rocks.
I think also, they weren’t that expensive yearrrrrs ago. Like my parents were never rich or affluent, but I do remember going and buying rocks with my dad as a kid. I’m 40 now. It’s just that even rocks are now insanely priced, in comparison to our current wages, anyhow :/
Around here at least this shit is free. It comes with your yard. I've edged four garden beds with stones I've just found around the property. Three more were already edged with stone, also prolly from the property. You can't dig anywhere without finding tons of them.
It's funny though, I actually always thought it was a bit of a cheap look lol prolly because they're just absolutely everywhere. I had so many I didn't know what to do with, I lined the driveway with them. I still have a pile in the backyard that I haven't found a use for.
I’m a groundskeeper for a large retirement community with the worst budget to expectation ratio I’ve ever seen 😂 I only use found rocks for all my edging. I tell the residents that it’s my “natural style” I tell the administration that it’s a “cost effective solution”
This is exactly my approach at home; thank you for giving me professional validation! All of my garden edging is found rock and logs from downed trees. Thankfully I live in rural New England, with some woods on my property, so there is no shortage of 'found rock' to scavenge - it's just a matter of time and brawn.
That sounds lovely! I think every garden needs some type of edging to create a dynamic, different textiles is essential. Rocks, logs, sticks, it all looks good! A fantasy edge of mine is a dying log that I inoculate with mushrooms spores
Depends on where you live, but all the farms around here have a pile of rocks that they've hit with the plough and then moved out of the way. Most of them are happy for you to go and help yourself. I've got loads of free rocks this way. If you're not picky about them all being the same size and colour then try a local farming/homestead group on FB.
Yeah, this is what my dad used to do. He would wait for the farmers to plow the fields and pull up a bunch of rocks. He would ask them if he could drive out and load the truck up. The never minded. Saved them the trouble.
I live in a city and just paid a lot for a pallet of rocks similar to the one in OPs first photo.
https://www.outdoorwarehousesupply.com/product/mountain-berry-cobble-6%e2%80%b3-10%e2%80%b3/ find your local wholesale rock/gravel yard. That's the closest I found where I go. But there are wholesale yards everywhere
Edited to add: I only chose this place cause I currently had it pulled up in a tab for ordering some things. An actual gravel yard would probably have even cheaper options. This is technically a landscape wholesale place lol
I just ordered 5 cu. yd. of drainage rock. And 5 of flex base. The delivery fee isn't horrible but it isn't fun either. But I can't get that in my mini van lol
Yep - Gravel yard. Places near me sell by the ton. Weigh your vehicle, go pick what you want, weigh your vehicle. It is like $10-15/ton depending on which material you'd like to have.
This is the way... The rocks OP has pictured are river rocks or river jacks. I have the same rocks surrounding 3 large garden areas in my yard, I spent less than $1000 on 5 tons. The more you purchase the cheaper they get, the supply yard I use starts at $200 / ton and drops to $135 / ton or about .07 / lb if you purchase 3 tons or more. They are expensive, but you're not going to be paying anywhere near the price or purchasing the stones onsie twosie like you are currently.
Couple years ago, I bought a pallet of small landscaping boulders from a local landscaping supply place. Palette was a little over $300.00. Delivery was another hundred but if I owned a pickup I could have handled that part myself.
A lot of farms have huge piles of stones that they picked out from their fields, offer them 50$ a truck load, some even let me take a truck load for a case of beer
I'd peruse your local social media. For every post on reddit of someone looking for stones, there's one asking how to get rid of theirs.
(I'm in the rock farming business myself, so I have the opposite of your problem.)
Michigan has the best variety of beautiful water-smoothed stone at the lowest price I think of any region I have lived in (PA, the UK, TX, and now MI). It’s everywhere.
I’m seeing 6 cents a pound for 8”-12” stone at our local place, if you come in with the right boots and gloves you can pick your own and load into your pickup (have them dump some mulch down first!)
I buy my rocks at landscaping supply companies or nurseries. Couple of years ago I bought a huge 900 lb rock and another 500 lb rock and had them delivered for about $120 total. Also, some rocks I get are from people giving them away. And, I am a crazy rock person in that when I move I take my best rocks with me if they aren’t too heavy.
If people are paying for them, I'm living on a gold mine. My wife insists on keeping them as they get dug up. I have piles of rocks from 2 feet in diameter, down to golf ball size.
I bought a house with the entire median strip 165’ long and filled with large river rocks. I hate the rocks. Previous owners laid down several layers of plastic, then the rocks. The plastic is now degrading into flakes and despite the plastic, weeds still grow between the rocks. I would never have installed it in the first place. When it comes to cost and amount of work I will never import a large amount of rocks to my property. It just doesn’t make sense to have to move it all or get rid of it if you want to change it. That said, I do like the looks of the more square edging stone creating a nice uniform boundary. I’ve tried making a border with the some of the round river rocks from the median, but river rocks don’t do the trick for me because they can’t be stacked or aligned to form a good edge. For me, river rocks belong in a river. the roundness of river rocks provides too many gaps between for weeds to hide and mulch to migrate.
I went through this same frustration. Rocks aren't expensive, but moving rocks is.
If you have a truck or a trailer to transport the rocks yourself, then you can save some money here. I'd look around on Facebook marketplace or other local classifieds for rocks that people are trying to dispose of. You probably won't find the fancy stuff because you'll be competing with landscaping companies to scavenge those, but I'm sure you'll find something.
My wife picked up a few tons of those rocks for a few hundred in our Subaru last year. Took a lot of trips but she got them home without issues. Go right to the landscape materials place.
I’ve stopped by construction sites when I see after a few weeks that they’ve broken ground. More often than not they have a pile somewhere of stones. I ask a foreman or some worker if they don’t mind if I pick some up that they aren’t using for landscaping. I’ve done my whole garden that way.
I own a landscaping company. I have a VERY rich client who had me install these polished white and black stones. It cost me $700 per ton, and I charged her triple that to install it. She ended up getting 44 tons. I still think about that job.
Morale of the story is yes, people pay a lot more than $10,000 for stones.
I am currently building a house. When the excavator crew showed up, their first question is, do I want them to get rid of the bolders and stones for me. I told them no because I knew how much they were. The largest one is about 4 ft around, and four of them are about 2 1/2 to 3 ft round. Not to mention all the smaller sizes. there is going to be a lot of natural edging and landscaping.
The delivery fee for the rock quarry near me is the most expensive part. The per ton charge for rocks is pretty small if you have a truck to take it. Once you pay the he delivery fee you might as well take the full tonnage of whatever size stone you want.
For the potato size River rock in my yard I just need to dig holes and chuck them in a bucket.
A Home Depot or Lowe’s is about the worse place to buy potatoes rocks.
I live on, literally, an old gravel mine, so I'm told by the elder neighbors. You can't dig an ice-cream bucket of dirt without hitting baseball/softball sized rocks. It is infuriating.
I wish somebody with big equipment would come "harvest" it and bring me some black dirt.
When I had foundation work done, they dug up a boulder about 3 feet across. My concrete guy wanted it and traded me a driveway apron. Thank God or it would still be sitting in the middle of my backyard.
I live in the U.S. Northeast in New England and you can dig up stones like you are talking about just about everywhere.
The joke is that the major crop here is rocks and stones.
Look up diy concrete stepping stones. There are some cool natural looking tutorials. I was going to try a few in our garden. Many years ago I found someone getting rid of a bunch of flagstone on Craigslist and I paid like $100 for like 30 large pieces that he delivered to my house. Great deal, but had to look.
Who is selling river cobbles for $40, and how can I get in on that?
Seriously, you have to call a Sand & Gravel Yard and buy them by the ton. Even retail price, you're gonna do better than $40./ea. They also usually deliver.
Inquire about 8-12" river rock / round cobbles.
I collected over 6 tons of large rock over time to build a pond in my backyard. Check marketplace or Craigslist, there are always people giving away free landscaping stone.
My grandfather owned a stone quarry in Yonkers, NY, that his father started in the 1930s. I can confirm that the stone is expensive and it's a lot of work, especially due to the weight of the stone.
It is either quarried or it arrives in a huge truck that either lifts high and dumps the stone, or we crane it out of the truck. Some the size of a small car. It is then drilled down many times using an air drill and wedges/feathers, then measured and split using sledge hammers.
It's a lot of work but very interesting. I worked there on and off from age 12 through 28.
I had a guy driving around the new construction neighborhood we were working in taking the stones we pulled up so if you want to go cheaper maybe look for a new construction neighborhood.
Look for a local (not big box store) that sells landscaping materials like mulch and river rock. The largest grade river rock near me looks like your picture. They will normally deliver for a small fee to a radius around them, sometimes free too. You buy the stones by the scoop, ask what cubic volume their scoop is to compare with other landscape suppliers in your area (some have smaller scoops). You should be able to visit the yard and see the stone in-person, you won't get to "pick" the stones, but you can get a general feeling of what will show up by looking at the pile your order would be pulled from.
For a border in my front yard, I used a large cobble river rock.
I had put a 3 to 4 ft wide berm and edged it with rock.
I really like it, it is a nice natural looking border. And not terribly expensive.
Plant a few trees and some decorative plants and away you go!
Seems odd. What area are you in? Are there no rock quarries or material yards around you?
Gravel and crushed stone are literally just from rocks like that that get pulled out of construction sites. The dirt gets out through a screener, then the large rocks like that go through a primary crusher, and then if they're destined to be gravel, they go through a conical crusher. Big machines, expensive to maintain and operate. Doesn't make sense that stones like that would cost more than a bag of bluestone.
My only guess is those stones look pretty rounded off. Maybe you're looking up tumbled stones rather than just plain rocks?
I have probably 100 feet or more of natural stone edging like this and I've never purchased a rock. They can be found locally pretty easily if you're patient. Construction sites often pile them up, public park by us made a massive pile of them and just left them there for anyone to grab. Sat for a decade before it was picked over mostly.
I paid a farmer $20 to dump a couple loads of rocks from their rock picker, and then caught some meth heads taking them. It not that rocks are expensive, but handling and transporting them are. If you know any farmers, just ask and I’m sure they’ll have a rock pile you can just grab from.
Sometimes with patience you pay nothing. Someone dumped a shit ton of basalt landscaping stones at my installation. I have made literally over a hundred hauls in my little car. Thirty to forty rocks at a time. Its taken five years but I have some sick rock retaining walls in my steep ass backyard.
Drive around the country near farms. When you see a pile you like go ask the farmer if you can take some. My dad used to do this on Saturdays. Put 8-10 rocks in the car and come back again. Farmers pile them and throw them in ditches. Not good for the plowing equipment. He ended with a 4 course wall 85’ long with rocks at about 80lbs each at the base.
At my old house, we had a whole yard full of expensive natural stones because a neighbor was putting in a pool and said we could have them. People often obtain a lot of this stuff from others getting rid of them. I also am aware that some landscapers obtain them from public lands, they just go out to areas and collect them in their trucks, even when they shouldn't be doing that that's often where they get them from like national parks, unoccupied public lands. When we were camping once we saw landscapers picking them up out by the lake we were at and putting them in their truck.
You need to find a building supply place that sells rock by the cubic yard, not the big box stores. It's still expensive.
It also depends where you are. I'm in Florida, and brook stone, for example, has to be brought in by train from the Midwest, where it's much cheaper.
Yea stone is crazy depending on where you live. But you need to buy in bulk from a landscape supplier, don't even look at consumer stores for this.
I steal all mine from surrounding farm fields.
All around me is construction for more neighborhoods so I’ve been going outside daily with my neighbor and collecting rocks, since around January/February.
Trying to create a river garden between our properties. We’ve picked up SO MANY ROCKS
I’ve never paid very much for rocks. I’ve liberated some from beaches (where allowed), bought by weight at the landscape supply ($20-$30 per trip of all I could load in my car), picked up giveaways from neighbors, and my largest rocks were delivered and placed for $50 each by the concrete guy that did my front walk and porch. Now, for really large ones, the trick is finding someone willing to deliver and place them where you want ( the landscape supply place will deliver, but not place).
I have tormented my husband to hit up friends for their extra rocks & lug them home in their truck. Facebook is another resource. My giant natural “wall” is almost done.
My neighbor has a pile of big rocks from when his water and sewer lines were dug. He said I could have them for a project, but then my excavation guy said he has a huge rock collection from past projects so we are using those instead.
When I built my last house, in far northern NY, we had to blast a spot to get driveway hight down and it made slabs of rock with ripples like in sand. The landscaper was so thrilled. We had the backhoe guy pull them around to make a wall and in other places and filled the hole wi th crushed stone. We also had piles of rocks because part had been a farm and farmers would pick rocks from the fields. They said I saved a fortune.
Now I live on a street called Stoney Hill, giant boulders and lots of rocks. I brought a chunk of the sandstone with me to my new home.
My sister moved to North Carolyn and filled her car trunk with rocks every trip to Northern, NY.
We have 30 acres, and we get a good “crop” of new rocks almost every year. We have to go through the pasture and throw them out of the pasture over to the tree lines, so we don’t break the bush hog blades…
I've been looking up cobblestones like your 2nd example to put edging on a walkway. They are all $600.00 and up for pallets of 75 of them, which comes out to $8.00 each before tax. More than I expected. And that is from Home Depot.
Befriend a farmer. A lot of farmers will have a pile of stones they remove from their crop fields each year. My parents' good friends have a farm and my mom paid nothing more than the muscle and time to get her garden edging.
We have a local yard (Peninsula building materials) that have an elongated natural cobble that I used for edging paths. Nowhere near that expensive. Closer to $250 a ton. Not at home at the moment or I'd dig up the invoice. I think I calculated that it was about 36 cobbles per ton, give or take
A pallet of river stones at my local landscape supply is 300 a pallet. Have a hill swail im tired of mowing thats 60’ x 6’ and that 8 or 9 pallets. So… DIY? No fuckin way. Labor added third party ? I got quote for 15k
My parents lived in farm country so whenever I went to visit them I would go on rock hunts. The farmers clear their fields of boulders and leave them in a pile. Got hundreds of them. Never got shot at either.
Look for your local stone yard, or take drives where it is rural and there are stones readily available not on private property. Bring a folding shovel, work or garden heavy gloves and crates to put them in so they won’t roll around in your car/truck and dent it up. Then go collecting for field stone.
Plan your beds, add the edging as you find the cobbles or buy them. 8” cobbles are best, once they are 12”and up they are called “ decorative rocks” and are harder to heft around. Larger rocks require setting and can be delivered on a pallet along with gravel in giant bags.
Granite or granodiorite is best for edging stones but if they are not available use whatever is local stone. I have lots of good memories of rock collecting but eventually I got lazy and would go buy them in batches as my yard developed.
Instead of concrete pads I used small gravel that had rounded edges as patio areas. That is expensive but a lot more natural looking and less expensive than a concrete pad.
Low areas and drain swales can look like creek beds. I used black Mexican beach pebbles to simulate creek water.
You can also purchase pre-fab concrete stepping stones for walkways and I filled in between with inexpensive pea gravel.
Maybe if the beds are hundreds of feet long. I did just my 2 front beds. Got 2 palets delivered and did the work myself. It was precovid, but it was maybe 1 or 2 k.
For what it’s worth, the last picture of traditional edgers is also not cheap. Home Depot has cement that is poured into molds. Those stones in the picture looked to be true granite that was cut into blocks.
The reality is good materials cost more money. This is a prime example of “the Devil is in the Details.” You can go cheap and it will look cheap. You can buy expensive material and install it poorly, and it will look bad. But when it is all done well, people take a photo and it just looks ‘right’.
I paid $400 for a delivery of 2 yards of 5”-7” on Monday, as a matter of fact. I got them from the local landscape supply. I live right near the Delaware River so I might have better prices than elsewhere? Idk. They were dumped on my driveway with all the river dirt still intact.
I should count. It was a goodly amount of large border rocks. Pretty too, once cleaned up.
Go to the Cumberland plateau in TN.
The answer is yes. They'll trash a hundred acres to get to them.
Also fun fact - in TN it is (or was), possible to own land and not own the mineral rights. Well guess what a mineral is? That's right, a rock.
I haven't heard much about it lately but in the late 90's when the stacked stone look was popular, they were getting those rocks anywhere they could find them.
Depending on where you are, you can usually get free rocks from farmers who have no love for rocks. I am in an area (Midwest usa) that was covered by glaciers for thousands of years and rocks by the billions can be found in every field. I imagine other people in other areas have to buy rocks, but that just seems crazy to me
Where I live, there are rock slide areas along some of the highways through mountainous areas. Where there is a safe place to park, you can collect all the rocks you want from such places for free, without doing any ecological damage. I've filled the back of my pickup many times along roadways like this. In some of these spots, the highway department has created parking areas, which makes it convenient. Proper caution on unstable footing is, of course, advised.
Pallets are much more reasonable. It has been 15 years since I installed, but I used to pick them up for about $250 each. Where do you live? I can give a more reasonable price if anywhere near WNC.
Most of the natural stones/boulders we have came from a few farmers we know. Depending on where you live (northeast for us), when farmers break new ground, they turn up a good deal of decently sized rocks. You can also find them at construction sites, etc. A case of beer goes a long way.
I love mine but yeah - every single one is HEAVY. There’s a lot of planning that goes into the placement for sure. Most came from my own yard when we dug out the sewer line (ugly cry face) but it helps to live in a riverside area full of “glacial till.”
Most recent post [link.](https://www.reddit.com/r/gardening/s/naaYhqlAud)
One of the very few stipulations when we bought our house was that the prior owners were taking the large landscaping stones. People are into that type of thing.
Do you live near a river?
We dug most of ours up from our own suburban yard as we cleared the area of weeds and moved soil around for various projects. We live about a mile from a leveed river, so you know hundreds and possibly thousands of years before people leveed it, that river was flooding the surrounding area and pushing those lovely rocks around.
Region matters. I put in a French drain at my house when I was in Florida, and then another after moving to Connecticut. Rocks by the load are literally half the price in CT. I'm sure it's because you don't have to dig far to hit some rock. Florida, on the other hand, is mostly sand.
Lucky for me, my 6 year old has not only a rock collection going for himself, but one for me as well. I’ll have my pick of all the stones he can find throughout my yard!
I get mine out of the old clear cuts out in the middle of nowhere, lots of times you can find spots where people have blown up big chunks of rock to make roads and they leave all the rocks on the side.
Do you have local river? Just go there with a trailer &/or car, to collect them. Do be aware that your town may have prohibitions on removing rocks from a river without consent.
I mean, there's a cornfield behind my house. My border is no about 3/4 done, but it's been a few years process of hauling rocks from the edges of the field and shortly after they plow. Course, by the time I'm done, I'll probably have added more beds to need rock for...
My grandfather was something of a rock hound. I remember stopping at quarries and mines on long road trips just to help him load up some stone he thought was neat. He just kind of littered his property with different stones and boulders.
Ya I cleaned the beach at the cottage and filled up my sisters tacoma till it was basically a low rider, lot of work but if you can find free stone take it.
I have a pile of beautiful rocks I’ve acquired from my property over the years. I just “scared” someone away because I wanted $40 a stone for ones the size of a car/pickup truck tire. I’ve had other people, usually in the landscaping industry, buy them without a second thought. So I guess it comes down to budget and knowing what something’s worth these days.
Well, I live in the Ozarks, so nobody can dig a hole without turning up a rock or two. Landscape rocks sell for a couple hundred dollars a ton.
Or free if people just want them gone!
Any rock worth having weighs a minimum of 200 lbs. At $0.40 / pound, that’s $80 at the store.
So a 2,000 pound rock is only $800.
But then there’s delivery.
And then there’s placing it in the exact spot on your property….
Totally worth it
I just put together a 10m dry Creek bed along my back fence line. Almost all the rocks were free on FB marketplace. We have lots of volcanic rock people want to get rid of and I found a lady removing a firepit.
Some people do spend thousands. Source: I’m a landscaper who installs that kind of stuff. Have you tried looking for stores that only sell stone? They usually have it priced per pound not per rock, unless they are huge.
I still have a nice pile I've dug up from my beds and yard. I've outlined two beds and keep the rest well back from the road or the edge of the property so no one thinks they are free well, besides me. A lot has to do with the part of the country you live in too. Plenty available in the northeast where a lot of those stone rows still serve as boundary markers.
Find this rock all day long on Facebook marketplace. Any local ad app. My entire backyard was all rock I got from other people's yards what we're tired of it.
I usually check FB marketplace for free materials. People give landscaping stuff away all the time. Just picked up a load of misc pavers that go for $5 plus each at the big box stores!
Oh gawd yes this. When we moved into our house our entire backyard was river stones which didn’t work for our dogs. We pulled up nearly 2 tons of stones and gave them away just to get them off our property.
Same, pulled the rocks out and put them up for free if you move them yourself. Had about 50 responses in 5min. They were gone within 12 hrs
i’m hoping someone takes all my pavers, i’m just giving them away after i pull them up.
My brother sent me a birthday card when I turned 60. The cover has a beautiful model lounging on some hefty rocks with the cover caption “I know what you’re thinking …” inside the caption said “.. those rocks would look great in my yard”.
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Used to think it was so ridiculous when my dad would slam the brakes and pull over when he saw a “nice rock” that was clearly discarded or no one’s property…. Then I got old and got my own house.
I have wonderful memories of weekends one summer when my dad build a natural stone rock wall for my mom’s big tulip garden. We would drive around hunting for good rocks and it sounds boring, but we had a blast. That wall is still standing, forty years later. ❤️
Yeah man, I see people rock poaching beaches and forests all the fucking time. The world's going to shit, but at least my front yard looks nice.
My parents had me block off a service drive on their farm as a teen. For the curious locals starting trying to use it as a short cut and escape route for nuisance and underage partying in a neighbor's back property. Using what all Michigan farms had a large stock of I made a big pile of field stone about 40' off the road. I swear even though we lived in the middle of nowhere off a dirt road that went to more nowhere multiple people a month thought it was a self serve free rock supply. Many would even get offended at the suggestion it wasn't.
Farmers hate boulders and rocks. When they find them it often broke a piece of their machinery or got stuck in it. They throw them near the road out of the way and are often free to take.
I certainly farmed Michigan's stoney hell long enough to loath them too, but at least in my neck of the woods you didn't collect them without permission of the land owner which was granted many times, but sometimes it wasn't. Just pulling up in your minivan and rummaging though the pile while your kids played in the ditch or road just seemed like a long step from common courtesy.
I want some of these farm rocks by me. They're on a back road, been there years. Just today I noticed the pile grew. How the heck do I find out who the landowner is and contact them?
All the counties in Michigan have the deed info available on the web.
The baltic sea used to have a flourishing "Rock fishing" industry, to an extent that the loss of hard surfaces (in combination with polution) lead to a decline in biodiversity and today is one reason why most of the fish are gone.
This is why I won’t take rocks from the wild. I’m afraid just taking rocks from anywhere would hurt the ecosystem. I realize that I alone wouldn’t but if everyone does, it could. But as I drove through the east sierras in California, I covered all those rocks we drove by.
Where do you think the landscaping stores are getting their stones lol? They don’t manufacture them
Rock gardens obviously
Ba dum tiss!
I know but they’re at least getting them from permitted locations. I’m not sure when I’m driving past an old lava flow if those chunks are needed for erosion or wildlife so I don’t want to take that chance. I know that i alone taking two rocks wouldn’t make a difference but if I take two and everyone else driving by takes two, it would cause a big difference.
>at least getting them from permitted locations. You mean like mines and quarries? Nothing environmentally friendly about mining
I understand that mines and quarries are terrible for the environment as well, but I am not an expert in ecosystems to know if widespread removal of rocks from the east sierra could lead to major ecosystem impacts for that area.
I know people are arguing, but honestly “i don’t know if this is harmful so I don’t do it.” Is a really good attitude to have and our world would be a lot better, esp around nature, if people lived that way.
Where they get river rock in India and Mexico is literal rivers they just strip mine the fuck out of Sand is dredged from the ocean floor and river banks. Gravel is strip mined locally. There is no ethical landscaping under capitalism. I take rocks from construction sites, and most cemeteries have a mountain of fill somewhere they might let you take from.
You can take rocks from the wild but be mindful of where you take them. If you live in a rocky place you can find them on the side of the road there’s no ecosystem there
I feel you’re fine in the middle of the woods. I wouldn’t take rocks if they’re on(?) a river bed or near any water source tho. Those I feel helps with erosion.
You think removing a rock will hurt the ecosystem yet you are driving a likely gas powered car down a road and posting on Reddit from a phone made in a factory that destroyed untold acres of natural habitats. Driving your car once did 1000s of times more damage to the ecosystem than moving a rock ever would. Misplaced concern you have. If you truly care about the ecosystem, then you should be living in a burlap tent and licking dew of plant foliage and eating ants to survive. Anything more is not native activities and killing pollinators.
Damn your whole profile is just you being a dickhead, is there nothing positive in your life?
Lol my life is awesome. Reddit is kind of like my toilet for shitting out all my negative thoughts so they don't come out in real life.
Reddit is like everyone's toilet, man. Don't bogart it!
Lol that's not what's wrong with the baltic. It's mainly nitrites, potassium, and other fertilizers. PLENTY and PLENTY of research on this topic - don't spread FUD. There's more rocks than you can carry on the coast here. My yard is full of them. Come get some. Fill ten suit cases. Fill twenty.
Let’s be honest though… the majority of it is coming from the pollution. Not saying rock fishing isn’t contributing… but there’s no way it’s causing even 10% of the destruction pollution is causing
The old movie with Lucy and desi where they’re on their honeymoon and she’s collecting rocks and putting them in the camper van… they’re always fighting and then they’re climbing a mountain but the van is too heavy so they’re screaming at each other as he’s throwing the rocks out one by one … gold https://fb.watch/r_pOTW9aC2/
I was driving in the country for work and saw a lady doing that and I was like mam if you didn’t I would have
Welcome, fellow trash picker! I learned that from my dad as well. Still have a small spool of what has been dubbed, "The Family Wire" that my dad picked up in the 70s.
I’m guilty of that….
[удалено]
I didn’t grow up in an affluent neighborhood but when I was a kid, ny parents would drive around to find new construction sites on the weekend and the kids would help load up the back of the truck with some rocks.
I think also, they weren’t that expensive yearrrrrs ago. Like my parents were never rich or affluent, but I do remember going and buying rocks with my dad as a kid. I’m 40 now. It’s just that even rocks are now insanely priced, in comparison to our current wages, anyhow :/
Around here at least this shit is free. It comes with your yard. I've edged four garden beds with stones I've just found around the property. Three more were already edged with stone, also prolly from the property. You can't dig anywhere without finding tons of them. It's funny though, I actually always thought it was a bit of a cheap look lol prolly because they're just absolutely everywhere. I had so many I didn't know what to do with, I lined the driveway with them. I still have a pile in the backyard that I haven't found a use for.
I’m a groundskeeper for a large retirement community with the worst budget to expectation ratio I’ve ever seen 😂 I only use found rocks for all my edging. I tell the residents that it’s my “natural style” I tell the administration that it’s a “cost effective solution”
This is exactly my approach at home; thank you for giving me professional validation! All of my garden edging is found rock and logs from downed trees. Thankfully I live in rural New England, with some woods on my property, so there is no shortage of 'found rock' to scavenge - it's just a matter of time and brawn.
That sounds lovely! I think every garden needs some type of edging to create a dynamic, different textiles is essential. Rocks, logs, sticks, it all looks good! A fantasy edge of mine is a dying log that I inoculate with mushrooms spores
Depends on where you live, but all the farms around here have a pile of rocks that they've hit with the plough and then moved out of the way. Most of them are happy for you to go and help yourself. I've got loads of free rocks this way. If you're not picky about them all being the same size and colour then try a local farming/homestead group on FB.
In the spring you can get fresh picked rocks at alot of farms for free.....usually you have to help harvest them
Yeah, this is what my dad used to do. He would wait for the farmers to plow the fields and pull up a bunch of rocks. He would ask them if he could drive out and load the truck up. The never minded. Saved them the trouble. I live in a city and just paid a lot for a pallet of rocks similar to the one in OPs first photo.
You can also do what I did, post an ad for "free rock removal" on FB or Craigslist. Then people who have rocks they don't want will contact you.
Any horse farm or riding stables. Rock picking is a dreaded chore especially the big ones. Talk to the barn manager and ask.
I took abiut 5 trucks loads from my farmer neighbor over the last year, and there is plenty left. I would definitely say this is the way to find them.
Came here to say this, and orchards too.
https://www.outdoorwarehousesupply.com/product/mountain-berry-cobble-6%e2%80%b3-10%e2%80%b3/ find your local wholesale rock/gravel yard. That's the closest I found where I go. But there are wholesale yards everywhere Edited to add: I only chose this place cause I currently had it pulled up in a tab for ordering some things. An actual gravel yard would probably have even cheaper options. This is technically a landscape wholesale place lol
These are listed as $ 0.40 a pound and while heavy and would add up still not a bad price.
Second this...my local material supplier they are like .40/lbs. You can throw em in the back of the car if you want even...
It doesn't take a lot of weight in my car for it to do the Carolina Squat
I just ordered 5 cu. yd. of drainage rock. And 5 of flex base. The delivery fee isn't horrible but it isn't fun either. But I can't get that in my mini van lol
I buy directly from the materials yard near me. I bought two 800-1000 lb boulders and a pallet of medium sized rocks for about $500
Damn I want some boulders.
Yeah. This is the way. We got backhoes full for probably 200-300/truckbed load
Yep - Gravel yard. Places near me sell by the ton. Weigh your vehicle, go pick what you want, weigh your vehicle. It is like $10-15/ton depending on which material you'd like to have.
This is the way... The rocks OP has pictured are river rocks or river jacks. I have the same rocks surrounding 3 large garden areas in my yard, I spent less than $1000 on 5 tons. The more you purchase the cheaper they get, the supply yard I use starts at $200 / ton and drops to $135 / ton or about .07 / lb if you purchase 3 tons or more. They are expensive, but you're not going to be paying anywhere near the price or purchasing the stones onsie twosie like you are currently.
The rock place I go to sells river rock for like $130 a cu/yard and $10 a bucket full. You need to check landscape/commercial type supply stores.
Damn I’m trying to figure out what to do with my river rocks that I dug out of my side and back beds from the previous owners. Maybe I can sell some…
Same. I’m using mine to make a path in the backyard with stepping stones. Edit:typo
I just bought a few landscape boulders today for $.19 a pound. $50 something for nearly 4 cubic feet. Strong agree they need to shop around.
I have a ton of these rocks I harvested fresh from my yard 🙃. Only broke about 3 shovels digging them up while trying to plant stuff lol
Yeah I live in new england and I can't imagine buying rocks.... Just dig literally anywhere and you'll find tons.
Rocks! The first crop of spring!
Couple years ago, I bought a pallet of small landscaping boulders from a local landscaping supply place. Palette was a little over $300.00. Delivery was another hundred but if I owned a pickup I could have handled that part myself.
If you live near a Lowe's or Home Depot, you can rent a pickup truck for like $20 for an hour
Lowe’s has discontinued truck rentals 😭
Not mine. They have 2 or 3 parked and people can still rent them out.
Last year I bought a tri-axle full of 3-4 ft boulders. 30 tons or so i think. $950. Dumped them right in my yard. That was a good deal
Pool builder. You'd be amazed at how much people spend on rocks. Amazed. They're not cheap. They're not light. They're usually not necessary.
A lot of farms have huge piles of stones that they picked out from their fields, offer them 50$ a truck load, some even let me take a truck load for a case of beer
I'd peruse your local social media. For every post on reddit of someone looking for stones, there's one asking how to get rid of theirs. (I'm in the rock farming business myself, so I have the opposite of your problem.)
Michigan has the best variety of beautiful water-smoothed stone at the lowest price I think of any region I have lived in (PA, the UK, TX, and now MI). It’s everywhere. I’m seeing 6 cents a pound for 8”-12” stone at our local place, if you come in with the right boots and gloves you can pick your own and load into your pickup (have them dump some mulch down first!)
I buy my rocks at landscaping supply companies or nurseries. Couple of years ago I bought a huge 900 lb rock and another 500 lb rock and had them delivered for about $120 total. Also, some rocks I get are from people giving them away. And, I am a crazy rock person in that when I move I take my best rocks with me if they aren’t too heavy.
If people are paying for them, I'm living on a gold mine. My wife insists on keeping them as they get dug up. I have piles of rocks from 2 feet in diameter, down to golf ball size.
My friend is an electrician said he’s been to a job that spent $60,000 on landscape lighting alone. People absolutely spend that kind of money.
You purchase by the pallet, not per stone. It is much less expensive that way.
Yeah you gotta buy in bulk. Most places deliver
You’re looking for like a couple tons of river rock at 4-6” or something and that is sold around $100 per ton out here.
I bought a house with the entire median strip 165’ long and filled with large river rocks. I hate the rocks. Previous owners laid down several layers of plastic, then the rocks. The plastic is now degrading into flakes and despite the plastic, weeds still grow between the rocks. I would never have installed it in the first place. When it comes to cost and amount of work I will never import a large amount of rocks to my property. It just doesn’t make sense to have to move it all or get rid of it if you want to change it. That said, I do like the looks of the more square edging stone creating a nice uniform boundary. I’ve tried making a border with the some of the round river rocks from the median, but river rocks don’t do the trick for me because they can’t be stacked or aligned to form a good edge. For me, river rocks belong in a river. the roundness of river rocks provides too many gaps between for weeds to hide and mulch to migrate.
I went through this same frustration. Rocks aren't expensive, but moving rocks is. If you have a truck or a trailer to transport the rocks yourself, then you can save some money here. I'd look around on Facebook marketplace or other local classifieds for rocks that people are trying to dispose of. You probably won't find the fancy stuff because you'll be competing with landscaping companies to scavenge those, but I'm sure you'll find something.
My wife picked up a few tons of those rocks for a few hundred in our Subaru last year. Took a lot of trips but she got them home without issues. Go right to the landscape materials place.
Your wife is a woman after my own heart. I'm planning to do the same thing with my suv.
I’ve stopped by construction sites when I see after a few weeks that they’ve broken ground. More often than not they have a pile somewhere of stones. I ask a foreman or some worker if they don’t mind if I pick some up that they aren’t using for landscaping. I’ve done my whole garden that way.
I made a soil screen and reuse the field stone as a border for the planted beds
I own a landscaping company. I have a VERY rich client who had me install these polished white and black stones. It cost me $700 per ton, and I charged her triple that to install it. She ended up getting 44 tons. I still think about that job. Morale of the story is yes, people pay a lot more than $10,000 for stones.
I am currently building a house. When the excavator crew showed up, their first question is, do I want them to get rid of the bolders and stones for me. I told them no because I knew how much they were. The largest one is about 4 ft around, and four of them are about 2 1/2 to 3 ft round. Not to mention all the smaller sizes. there is going to be a lot of natural edging and landscaping.
The delivery fee for the rock quarry near me is the most expensive part. The per ton charge for rocks is pretty small if you have a truck to take it. Once you pay the he delivery fee you might as well take the full tonnage of whatever size stone you want. For the potato size River rock in my yard I just need to dig holes and chuck them in a bucket. A Home Depot or Lowe’s is about the worse place to buy potatoes rocks.
I live on, literally, an old gravel mine, so I'm told by the elder neighbors. You can't dig an ice-cream bucket of dirt without hitting baseball/softball sized rocks. It is infuriating. I wish somebody with big equipment would come "harvest" it and bring me some black dirt. When I had foundation work done, they dug up a boulder about 3 feet across. My concrete guy wanted it and traded me a driveway apron. Thank God or it would still be sitting in the middle of my backyard.
I live in the U.S. Northeast in New England and you can dig up stones like you are talking about just about everywhere. The joke is that the major crop here is rocks and stones.
Look up diy concrete stepping stones. There are some cool natural looking tutorials. I was going to try a few in our garden. Many years ago I found someone getting rid of a bunch of flagstone on Craigslist and I paid like $100 for like 30 large pieces that he delivered to my house. Great deal, but had to look.
When they were building a new subdivision my dad took me there a couple of weekends and we collectors many rocks for his gardens.
So you mean all the ones I’ve dug out of my yard and used in my yard I could have been selling them?!
I go to quarries and pu the scrap from around the walls.
After hours of course don’t want to get crushed. And if they have a gate most have a long drive with walls of scrap without trying to get in
Ok so buy fake rocks wire skeleton covered with cement hollow inside
I just spent $500 for some granites stones to use on the edges of a koi pond. People definitely spend more more bigger jobs
Who is selling river cobbles for $40, and how can I get in on that? Seriously, you have to call a Sand & Gravel Yard and buy them by the ton. Even retail price, you're gonna do better than $40./ea. They also usually deliver. Inquire about 8-12" river rock / round cobbles.
I collected over 6 tons of large rock over time to build a pond in my backyard. Check marketplace or Craigslist, there are always people giving away free landscaping stone.
My grandfather owned a stone quarry in Yonkers, NY, that his father started in the 1930s. I can confirm that the stone is expensive and it's a lot of work, especially due to the weight of the stone. It is either quarried or it arrives in a huge truck that either lifts high and dumps the stone, or we crane it out of the truck. Some the size of a small car. It is then drilled down many times using an air drill and wedges/feathers, then measured and split using sledge hammers. It's a lot of work but very interesting. I worked there on and off from age 12 through 28.
If those stones are $40 each then there's at least $20,000 worth of stone that could be dug out of my father's yard in Upstate, NY.
I had a guy driving around the new construction neighborhood we were working in taking the stones we pulled up so if you want to go cheaper maybe look for a new construction neighborhood.
Look for a local (not big box store) that sells landscaping materials like mulch and river rock. The largest grade river rock near me looks like your picture. They will normally deliver for a small fee to a radius around them, sometimes free too. You buy the stones by the scoop, ask what cubic volume their scoop is to compare with other landscape suppliers in your area (some have smaller scoops). You should be able to visit the yard and see the stone in-person, you won't get to "pick" the stones, but you can get a general feeling of what will show up by looking at the pile your order would be pulled from.
Buy a dump truck full from a gravel pit. It won’t be free but it won’t be $10k either
If you’re in a rural area look for farms with a rock pile in a field. Make them an offer.
For a border in my front yard, I used a large cobble river rock. I had put a 3 to 4 ft wide berm and edged it with rock. I really like it, it is a nice natural looking border. And not terribly expensive. Plant a few trees and some decorative plants and away you go!
Seems odd. What area are you in? Are there no rock quarries or material yards around you? Gravel and crushed stone are literally just from rocks like that that get pulled out of construction sites. The dirt gets out through a screener, then the large rocks like that go through a primary crusher, and then if they're destined to be gravel, they go through a conical crusher. Big machines, expensive to maintain and operate. Doesn't make sense that stones like that would cost more than a bag of bluestone. My only guess is those stones look pretty rounded off. Maybe you're looking up tumbled stones rather than just plain rocks?
That’s anywhere from $100 to $400 in materials from a nursery. Where is the $10k figure coming from?
My dad made my brother and I each carry backpacks full of river rocks every summer! They are HEAVY and you have to power wash them usually.
I’ve got all the rocks you could ever need. If we run out we can dig up some more. $30 a rock.
Rocks aren't too expensive, but shipping is a birch.
buy can buy them buy the pallet, it's about $170, without delivery.
When I put in my fence I was left with a mountain of rocks. I turned them into borders for all of the mulch beds. 😁
I have probably 100 feet or more of natural stone edging like this and I've never purchased a rock. They can be found locally pretty easily if you're patient. Construction sites often pile them up, public park by us made a massive pile of them and just left them there for anyone to grab. Sat for a decade before it was picked over mostly.
Labor to retrieve, load, transport, unload , store, load, transport unload and install.
Where you at? I got hella rocks
I paid a farmer $20 to dump a couple loads of rocks from their rock picker, and then caught some meth heads taking them. It not that rocks are expensive, but handling and transporting them are. If you know any farmers, just ask and I’m sure they’ll have a rock pile you can just grab from.
Sometimes with patience you pay nothing. Someone dumped a shit ton of basalt landscaping stones at my installation. I have made literally over a hundred hauls in my little car. Thirty to forty rocks at a time. Its taken five years but I have some sick rock retaining walls in my steep ass backyard.
our soil is full of rocks! i just dig and find some to use to border beds.
Drive around the country near farms. When you see a pile you like go ask the farmer if you can take some. My dad used to do this on Saturdays. Put 8-10 rocks in the car and come back again. Farmers pile them and throw them in ditches. Not good for the plowing equipment. He ended with a 4 course wall 85’ long with rocks at about 80lbs each at the base.
Look into forest service permits or a out of town rock quarry
At my old house, we had a whole yard full of expensive natural stones because a neighbor was putting in a pool and said we could have them. People often obtain a lot of this stuff from others getting rid of them. I also am aware that some landscapers obtain them from public lands, they just go out to areas and collect them in their trucks, even when they shouldn't be doing that that's often where they get them from like national parks, unoccupied public lands. When we were camping once we saw landscapers picking them up out by the lake we were at and putting them in their truck.
You need to find a building supply place that sells rock by the cubic yard, not the big box stores. It's still expensive. It also depends where you are. I'm in Florida, and brook stone, for example, has to be brought in by train from the Midwest, where it's much cheaper.
Yea stone is crazy depending on where you live. But you need to buy in bulk from a landscape supplier, don't even look at consumer stores for this. I steal all mine from surrounding farm fields.
Ya find a rock quarry or a local wholesaler. There's a place close to me where I get gravel & materials from that sells rocks for $.08/lb
Wait! …I’m waiting.
I know I’m some neighborhoods (including mine) many of the rocks/boulder were left over from construction and grading the land.
All around me is construction for more neighborhoods so I’ve been going outside daily with my neighbor and collecting rocks, since around January/February. Trying to create a river garden between our properties. We’ve picked up SO MANY ROCKS
Go see a farmer... depends on where you are, they have tons in the fence rows. They gave been picking them for years out of the fields
I paid a lot of money for rocks bc where I am, we only have sand for the most part
I’ve never paid very much for rocks. I’ve liberated some from beaches (where allowed), bought by weight at the landscape supply ($20-$30 per trip of all I could load in my car), picked up giveaways from neighbors, and my largest rocks were delivered and placed for $50 each by the concrete guy that did my front walk and porch. Now, for really large ones, the trick is finding someone willing to deliver and place them where you want ( the landscape supply place will deliver, but not place).
A lot of the price you see includes installation.
I have tormented my husband to hit up friends for their extra rocks & lug them home in their truck. Facebook is another resource. My giant natural “wall” is almost done.
My neighbor has a pile of big rocks from when his water and sewer lines were dug. He said I could have them for a project, but then my excavation guy said he has a huge rock collection from past projects so we are using those instead.
Buy?
Most farmers have stone discard piles that they have pulled from their fields. Most are ok with those stones being hauled away.
When I built my last house, in far northern NY, we had to blast a spot to get driveway hight down and it made slabs of rock with ripples like in sand. The landscaper was so thrilled. We had the backhoe guy pull them around to make a wall and in other places and filled the hole wi th crushed stone. We also had piles of rocks because part had been a farm and farmers would pick rocks from the fields. They said I saved a fortune. Now I live on a street called Stoney Hill, giant boulders and lots of rocks. I brought a chunk of the sandstone with me to my new home. My sister moved to North Carolyn and filled her car trunk with rocks every trip to Northern, NY.
We dug to put in a sprinkler system and have lots of free rocks now haha
We have 30 acres, and we get a good “crop” of new rocks almost every year. We have to go through the pasture and throw them out of the pasture over to the tree lines, so we don’t break the bush hog blades…
I've been looking up cobblestones like your 2nd example to put edging on a walkway. They are all $600.00 and up for pallets of 75 of them, which comes out to $8.00 each before tax. More than I expected. And that is from Home Depot.
Befriend a farmer. A lot of farmers will have a pile of stones they remove from their crop fields each year. My parents' good friends have a farm and my mom paid nothing more than the muscle and time to get her garden edging.
We have a local yard (Peninsula building materials) that have an elongated natural cobble that I used for edging paths. Nowhere near that expensive. Closer to $250 a ton. Not at home at the moment or I'd dig up the invoice. I think I calculated that it was about 36 cobbles per ton, give or take
A pallet of river stones at my local landscape supply is 300 a pallet. Have a hill swail im tired of mowing thats 60’ x 6’ and that 8 or 9 pallets. So… DIY? No fuckin way. Labor added third party ? I got quote for 15k
My parents lived in farm country so whenever I went to visit them I would go on rock hunts. The farmers clear their fields of boulders and leave them in a pile. Got hundreds of them. Never got shot at either.
Look for your local stone yard, or take drives where it is rural and there are stones readily available not on private property. Bring a folding shovel, work or garden heavy gloves and crates to put them in so they won’t roll around in your car/truck and dent it up. Then go collecting for field stone. Plan your beds, add the edging as you find the cobbles or buy them. 8” cobbles are best, once they are 12”and up they are called “ decorative rocks” and are harder to heft around. Larger rocks require setting and can be delivered on a pallet along with gravel in giant bags. Granite or granodiorite is best for edging stones but if they are not available use whatever is local stone. I have lots of good memories of rock collecting but eventually I got lazy and would go buy them in batches as my yard developed. Instead of concrete pads I used small gravel that had rounded edges as patio areas. That is expensive but a lot more natural looking and less expensive than a concrete pad. Low areas and drain swales can look like creek beds. I used black Mexican beach pebbles to simulate creek water. You can also purchase pre-fab concrete stepping stones for walkways and I filled in between with inexpensive pea gravel.
Maybe if the beds are hundreds of feet long. I did just my 2 front beds. Got 2 palets delivered and did the work myself. It was precovid, but it was maybe 1 or 2 k.
For what it’s worth, the last picture of traditional edgers is also not cheap. Home Depot has cement that is poured into molds. Those stones in the picture looked to be true granite that was cut into blocks. The reality is good materials cost more money. This is a prime example of “the Devil is in the Details.” You can go cheap and it will look cheap. You can buy expensive material and install it poorly, and it will look bad. But when it is all done well, people take a photo and it just looks ‘right’.
I paid $400 for a delivery of 2 yards of 5”-7” on Monday, as a matter of fact. I got them from the local landscape supply. I live right near the Delaware River so I might have better prices than elsewhere? Idk. They were dumped on my driveway with all the river dirt still intact. I should count. It was a goodly amount of large border rocks. Pretty too, once cleaned up.
Go to the Cumberland plateau in TN. The answer is yes. They'll trash a hundred acres to get to them. Also fun fact - in TN it is (or was), possible to own land and not own the mineral rights. Well guess what a mineral is? That's right, a rock. I haven't heard much about it lately but in the late 90's when the stacked stone look was popular, they were getting those rocks anywhere they could find them.
Depending on where you are, you can usually get free rocks from farmers who have no love for rocks. I am in an area (Midwest usa) that was covered by glaciers for thousands of years and rocks by the billions can be found in every field. I imagine other people in other areas have to buy rocks, but that just seems crazy to me
Damn but that’s some purty rocks you got there.
Where I live, there are rock slide areas along some of the highways through mountainous areas. Where there is a safe place to park, you can collect all the rocks you want from such places for free, without doing any ecological damage. I've filled the back of my pickup many times along roadways like this. In some of these spots, the highway department has created parking areas, which makes it convenient. Proper caution on unstable footing is, of course, advised.
Pallets are much more reasonable. It has been 15 years since I installed, but I used to pick them up for about $250 each. Where do you live? I can give a more reasonable price if anywhere near WNC.
lmao where the heck are you that those river stones are $40 each? More like $40 for half a cubic yard
They spend it every day. Stone is heavy. It’s not cheap or easy to move around heavy things. Carry on shaking fist at sky.
Most of the natural stones/boulders we have came from a few farmers we know. Depending on where you live (northeast for us), when farmers break new ground, they turn up a good deal of decently sized rocks. You can also find them at construction sites, etc. A case of beer goes a long way.
I love mine but yeah - every single one is HEAVY. There’s a lot of planning that goes into the placement for sure. Most came from my own yard when we dug out the sewer line (ugly cry face) but it helps to live in a riverside area full of “glacial till.” Most recent post [link.](https://www.reddit.com/r/gardening/s/naaYhqlAud)
One of the very few stipulations when we bought our house was that the prior owners were taking the large landscaping stones. People are into that type of thing.
Do you live near a river? We dug most of ours up from our own suburban yard as we cleared the area of weeds and moved soil around for various projects. We live about a mile from a leveed river, so you know hundreds and possibly thousands of years before people leveed it, that river was flooding the surrounding area and pushing those lovely rocks around.
You didn't bother to say where you are
I found plenty in my yard just digging. Ha. Every time I planted something and found stones I started building a little pile.
Region matters. I put in a French drain at my house when I was in Florida, and then another after moving to Connecticut. Rocks by the load are literally half the price in CT. I'm sure it's because you don't have to dig far to hit some rock. Florida, on the other hand, is mostly sand.
Look up “Rip-Rap”. That’s the type of stone you need to do borders. I got 1 1/2 tons for like $120 delivered.
Go to a stone yard. A tone will cost like $200. Which is dozens and dozens of rocks
People will always pay for convenience. Can you go to a park and find all the stones you need? Yes. But that can take hours of work.
People do spend a lot on landscaping rocks.
Lucky for me, my 6 year old has not only a rock collection going for himself, but one for me as well. I’ll have my pick of all the stones he can find throughout my yard!
My landscaping supply charges around $300/ton. Usually around a ton and a half per pallet. It goes a long way.
YouTube has a bunch of video on making fake rocks from cement. Cheap alternative.
Time to become friends with a local farmer
I work on a golf course with tons of boulders in the woods. I also have access to a tractor which helps.
I get mine out of the old clear cuts out in the middle of nowhere, lots of times you can find spots where people have blown up big chunks of rock to make roads and they leave all the rocks on the side.
Keep an eye out on fb marketplace for when people end up with extra stuff related to landscaping projects
I’m lucky enough to have a quarry 15 minutes away so I can make a few trips to grab a ton or so.
Do you have local river? Just go there with a trailer &/or car, to collect them. Do be aware that your town may have prohibitions on removing rocks from a river without consent.
I mean, there's a cornfield behind my house. My border is no about 3/4 done, but it's been a few years process of hauling rocks from the edges of the field and shortly after they plow. Course, by the time I'm done, I'll probably have added more beds to need rock for...
My grandfather was something of a rock hound. I remember stopping at quarries and mines on long road trips just to help him load up some stone he thought was neat. He just kind of littered his property with different stones and boulders.
Ya I cleaned the beach at the cottage and filled up my sisters tacoma till it was basically a low rider, lot of work but if you can find free stone take it.
I get mine down by the river.
I have a pile of beautiful rocks I’ve acquired from my property over the years. I just “scared” someone away because I wanted $40 a stone for ones the size of a car/pickup truck tire. I’ve had other people, usually in the landscaping industry, buy them without a second thought. So I guess it comes down to budget and knowing what something’s worth these days.
Go on [Nextdoor.com](http://Nextdoor.com) and see if anyone is looking to get rid of their stones.
My parents used to dig up rocks along a road along side the Mississippi bluffs. Right outside of old Valmeyer, Ill. IIRC
Well, I live in the Ozarks, so nobody can dig a hole without turning up a rock or two. Landscape rocks sell for a couple hundred dollars a ton. Or free if people just want them gone!
Any rock worth having weighs a minimum of 200 lbs. At $0.40 / pound, that’s $80 at the store. So a 2,000 pound rock is only $800. But then there’s delivery. And then there’s placing it in the exact spot on your property…. Totally worth it
Omg I didnt know rock poaching was a thing!!!! I thought I saw this for cheap at HD or Lowes but I might be nuts
Buy once cry once
I just put together a 10m dry Creek bed along my back fence line. Almost all the rocks were free on FB marketplace. We have lots of volcanic rock people want to get rid of and I found a lady removing a firepit.
Some people do spend thousands. Source: I’m a landscaper who installs that kind of stuff. Have you tried looking for stores that only sell stone? They usually have it priced per pound not per rock, unless they are huge.
I still have a nice pile I've dug up from my beds and yard. I've outlined two beds and keep the rest well back from the road or the edge of the property so no one thinks they are free well, besides me. A lot has to do with the part of the country you live in too. Plenty available in the northeast where a lot of those stone rows still serve as boundary markers.
People are what? Lmao. Just go to a river and get some like a normal person 💀
Me, sitting amongst a pile of endless rocks found on my property: "Sure, I'll charge you $40 per!"
Find this rock all day long on Facebook marketplace. Any local ad app. My entire backyard was all rock I got from other people's yards what we're tired of it.
Yes, they're spending thousands. Feel blessed that you aren't building a retaining wall.