Rock flower bed suggestions
 

Planning on removing pine straw and replace w rock. Any suggestions on a good person or company that is fair in pricing ??

(Too many weeds growing threw the pine straw)

TY in advance for sharing ideas.

:bigbow:

I have done this. My big suggestion is do not use white rock like I did. It gets dirty very easily. Make sure you put matting underneath and the matting overlaps. I put colorful pots with flowers on top so I am not making holes in the matting. I do use roundup and Preen.

when we had rock beds we'd find old snake skins in the bed on occasion

slithering across the rough surface of the rocks makes it easier for them shed their old skin

we're just not into providing an attraction for them, so we're back to pine bark beds

I would advise you to use smaller rocks, like pea stone. The smaller the rocks, the tighter they pack together. Although rocks will never prevent weeds, tightly packed smaller stones will block weeds more effectively than larger rocks with space between them. Also, putting a weed barrier over existing weeds is worse than no barrier at all. The weeds will just grow through the barrier and the mat will prevent you from pulling the weeds out and getting the root. If you put down a barrier be certain to remove all the weeds, roots included, before placing the barrier. Good luck with your project.

You will still get weeds i the rock garden, we actually had LESS weeds with mulch, and I am sorry the we removed the mulch and put in rock.................

Well apparently nobody read your question!! You were asking for recommendations for a person or company to do this and they just gave you their opinion as to whether to do it or not!! I had a stone wall put up in my front and I have white stones. I have not seen a snake they did put down a black mat for weeds..we have few and far between weeds we get sprayed every month. I will get beat up for this, but we did hire Good Neighbors. Now the landscaping guys did an awesome job. They took a day and a half carefully placing the stone wall and plants. I get many compliments. They do come every week and cut the grass. One time in the storms we were missed, I called and they came the next day. I unfortunately have to call and remind them to spray every month. But I love the white stones They don’t look dirty I think moss and all that other stuff looks dirty. I can’t recommend a landscaper cause everyone complains about everybody. So you just have to take a chance. I have heard complaints about Dean’s, Massey. But I get lots of compliments about my yard

Stone and matting work....as well as they can. We were advised NOT to get pure white stone as that will eventually look very dirty. We went with a salt and pepper stone. It has a little sparkle in it, too. Looks nice. Many compliments. Our bed has matting and is sprayed every week for weeds. They have been virtually non-existent but I expect them. Also don’t notice snake skins. All that being said, we’ve only had this landscaping since June.

Most weeds are not coming thru matting. They are growing in the dirt That accumulates on top of the matting. Weed spores/seeds and dirt are blown in by the wind on top of matting. I suppose.

TerraScapes. Very knowledgeable and professional. They do good work. They did a bunch of work for me and it cost me a decent sum of cash. Unfortunately I can’t tell you if that amount was reasonable or not as I had nothing to which to compare it.

On a similar note, does anyone know a person or company that pulls weeds? Our regular yard service people do not. Any recommendations?

Very true and they are easy to pull out since the roots are only on top of the mat.

Jason Schmidt Landscaping. Not only do they do great work, they take extra care to avoid impacting your neighbors during the installation. We have seen several others who do not.

We’ve used a mother/daughter team for weed pulling. They’ve done a good job, are prompt and reasonable.
Jean & Barbara 352-257-0614

You really think that snakes don’t crawl under and through the pine straw? 🙄🙄

Weed Pulling
 

We’ve used a mother/daughter team, Jean & Barbara for weed pulling.
They do a good job, are prompt and reasonable. 352-257-0614

Kerry Cherry it's a family owned local group. Shes a doll and works together with a team They just did rock beds on our our neighbors yard and will do work for me soon. 352-321-2451 or 352-617-0793

Luke’s Landscape our of Wildwood. We thought they were reasonably priced and good.

Landscaping company
 

My wife and I just redid all our landscaping with “Thompson Landscaping owned by Edwards A Thompson( degree in Landscaping Design) -
(352-895-7074) we were very pleased with his work. Ed Helped us in selecting the plants, layout and stone selection.
Yes weeds do still show up along the edges of the flower beds.
Regards.

Too Many weeds?
 

Lori - we did this five years ago, now the weeds are back! I am removing all the rock, digging out the torpedo grass roots, spraying with RoundUp (very carefully) and this time putting down EXTRA HEAVY weed cloth! Previous weed cloth decomposed and was useless at keeping weeds out! Now I'm putting back the rock and hope this does the trick at keeping the weeds from growing up through the weed cloth and rock 'mulch'.

Landscaping Company
 

I used Brothers Landscaping.

I also recommend Jason Schmidt Landscaping, 352-425-6361. They did a paver patio for us last month along with creating an additional rock bed for a small palm. They are very professional, courteous and always returned calls. The work looks great. I don’t know how reasonable they are in comparison to others as we didn’t check. I will say if you pick red Seminole stone, it is the most expensive stone available. We used red Seminole to match existing landscaping. 2 yards of Stone was $538. Give them a call, estimates are free. Good luck on your project!

Luke's Landscaping
 

We had Luke put down matting and stone. He does a great job and is reasonable.
Luke's Landscape at The Villages

You will get weeds even if you use rock in your landscape beds. Using rock makes it very difficult to change out plants that may fail, make it difficult to work on irrigation pipes that may break. Rock in your landscape beds also collects fallen leaves and plant debris that gets caught in the rock and is difficult to remove. The debris builds up over time and will become unsightly as it begins to cover the rock. Utilizing rock in your landscape is not an ultimate solution.

I used Jamies Landscaping. Comes highly recommended.
 

Jamie put down an industrial grade weed mat under my stones that is much much better than the cheap stuff you by at HD or Lowes. Whatever you do, do not buy a cheap grade weed mat! It makes all of the difference in the world!
You can never get rid of weeds entirely, but it cuts the maintenance way way down. A once-a -week 10 minute walk around with a herbicide will keep your landscaping weed free. Easy. Plus, once the rock settles and you have filled in the low spots, you do not have to add any more. Once you have the rock down in a thick layer, get about 4 or 5 - 5 gallon buckets of rock to fill in any low spots or new plantings. After that, you are set for life.

I can also recommend Jason Schmidt Landscapers. They removed my bark, installed the weed barrier, and laid the stone. Very efficient and clean.

Rock Beds
 

We love having small rocks in our landscaping instead of pine straw or mulch which need frequent replacing. A few weeds get in, but a little Roundup is easy to use. We chose a light multicolored rock with a darker curbing for the edging. Jamie’s Landscaping did a great job.

Ours was done 6 years ago, can’t remember who did it. Would highly suggest the stone BUT make sure you apply to ACC for approval prior. There have been to many instances lately where home owners are being turned in for improper “improvements” and they have been made to remove landscape.

Lukes is very good.

Good advice. NO white rock, think you will be disappointed. Know rock will not solve weed problems. Matting under is GREAT advice, overlap definitely get the treated kind at H Depot, but STILL expect WEEDS. They get through anything, ANYTHING ! Take some time to figure cost. When they talk so much for so many tons, you will be shocked at the TINY pile they bring which is many TONS ! Or, if you don't want to do the hauling to the actual location yourself (they dump in on the drive or where you indicate), then you need to plan on many more $$$ for them to do it all. If you do it, it is easy to underestimate and think because they are quoting you for many tons, it's going to be a large pile of rock.... NOT ! LOL ! But, it's not as costly as it is buying it a few sacks at a time at HD, Lowes, or WM.

Ditto ! Wish I had not, and it was a lot of work ! Weeds STILL get through the barrier, the TREATED barrier. The one advantage is I was spending so much on replacing the bark so often, seems inexpensive until you start adding up all the $3.00 or $4.00 sacks it take year after year. For that part, rock does save $$$.

Rocks are the worse for beds. Too much heat from sun will kill plants unless cactus. Weeds will come thru worse. Just MHO.

IMHO Don't do rocks, you will be picking weeds 4ever, no matter how much prep work.

Landscape package for new build was a difficult experience. Coming from NY State we had no idea of plant names that do well here or potential growth. The representatives for TCL should have a booklet that shows photos of each plant, its name and mature size and other features such as flowers, berries etc so that an informed decision can be made. She was flipping through computer images about 2 x 2 inches and I could not begin to get a good idea of what they looked like or read about them. We had to stop the meeting, visit the nursery the next day to get ideas, then meet again to be told there was NOT room for a stone edging as our house had to line up with others and we could not go past a certain line for this BUT could get permission and do it after market....Then several plants I had wanted that I saw at the nursery were not available to this company. Then she was pressed for time as she had another appointment so she ended up throwing in some plants that i was not familiar with - I found out later that these can grow up to 5 ft tall and wide and need pruning and I do NOT want them. My contract is signed and basically I was not happy with this whole experience. I have had to tear out original landscape at a house we built up North as we trusted the designer to meet our criteria with the plants she chose and they were awful- about 30 feet of scraggly thorny bushes that needed pruning and rarely flowered as she had described. We bought our own little pine trees, carefully measured, planted them and they form a wonderful privacy row in front of the property we sold last year - now they are about 20 feet tall. If you do it right and know the mature size of what you are getting you wont have to tear out mistakes and start all over and this is what we were TRYING to do this time around.....any advice or comments on how to get approval for the landscape curbing or recommendations of who to hire for this?

Our villa has brown seminole in the landscaped beds and white beach rock near the street. It looks pretty good. Eight years later, I think the white rock looks better because yard debris shows up more on the darker rock. It all sinks a bit so I just resurface by tossing a bit more rock every few years. I use Roundup sparingly. Vinegar is also good for killing weeds.