Tips for landscaping with natural stone in Arizona

If you’re an Arizona native, you may have a natural preference for using local stone for landscaping purposes. The local stone is excellent – Provided you’re using good quality source. There are some real problems with what might politely be described as “pre-loved gravel” and other inferior quality stone.

Desert stone is very tough, but it comes with a few caveats:

• Big boulders need to be placed first, and systematically. These are major structural features, upon which other features will rest. These are load bearing features and often used as supports for retaining walls and other critical planning elements.
• Bedding stone needs to be of very high quality, too. Bedding acts as a sort of tensile layout, supporting raised garden beds, steps, and other structural features. This type of landscaping is very like building, and foundation materials are extremely important.
• There are a wide range of different types of stone available, according to your needs. It’s a good idea to source your stone locally, and speak to the experts about your landscaping design options before making any final decisions.

(If you’re actually using a landscaper rather than doing it yourself, make your preferences clear from the outset, and discuss sourcing your stone as a high-priority issue. If you don’t, you may wind up with several tons of the wrong stone. That’s a very expensive exercise.)

• Stone used for walls and other landscaping features should also be properly bedded. Bedding is usually a combination of stone, mesh, and sand, depending on your design. It’s easy to get lost in the enthusiasm of planning your fabulous new landscape and overlook the fact that you’re actually buying about twice as much stone as the plan suggests.

We found an excellent local supplier of local stone in Arizona for landscaping. It’s a company called Ringo Canyon Granite LLC or PhoenixQuarry.com, which provides everything from decorative boulders to Rip Rap and Track Out rock for construction purposes. If you check out their website here at www.ringocanyongranite.com, you can contact us online or by phone for more information about our products and services.