Lava Rocks For Landscaping: Prettying Up The Side Of The House

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Our lava rocks for landscaping post below is to show you how lava rock is the perfect alternative to using mulch in the flower bed and you’ll absolutely love the way it looks!

It’s an Easy and a Low-Maintenance way to Spruce up the side of your home! So stay tuned for side yard ideas of your own.

I hope you guys had a great weekend! We tackled yet another gardening project on the side of our house. I’m starting to think we enjoy sweating. I shared with you the last one where we added rocks around AC Unit and I mentioned that we would have some leftover black lava rock to work on the other side of our home that’s been a little neglected. Well, we did just that… and today, I get to show you our finished side yard makeover and how much lava rock landscaping does for the curb appeal on the side of your home!

Lava Rock Landscaping: The Layout

We decided on a narrow layout. It would travel alongside the house and to include the front of garage so that our garden would wrap around. After we tidied up our garden with beautiful landscaping in the front of house, I really didn’t know what to do for this small little space on the opposite side of the garage. This was the perfect opportunity to dream that up. We also keep our garbage can on this side of the house and were looking to cutesy it up with pretty flowers and some black lava rocks to make it less of an eyesore.

Landscape Under Way & Plant Picks

After digging and edging out a decent size trench where the bed was going to go with a shovel and taking off the top layer of grass we planted our flowers. This side of the house gets mostly full sun. As far as the flowers,

I planted two Hostas from my mom. They need some plant love. Just a little note, all the plants I mention are perennials (which just means they come back every year).

This furry feeling plant has got to be the coolest. I think it blooms tiny white flowers but the dusty light green sold me; the name of it is Silver Mound Artemisia.

These pink cone flowers have some filling out to do but so far are so very pretty; they are Giles Van Hees Speedwell.

This one doesn’t look like much but the tag said otherwise; an Autumn Joy Sedum. Puffy pink flowers that go through summer to fall season. Anticipating to see them in full blossom.

UPDATE: They bloomed…Here they are!

My favorite one on this list; it’s Called Barbarini Red Dianthus. We planted two of these!

Plants For Clay Soil

Our ground has a lot of clay which causes growth stunts in plants (find this info and why clay can be very problematic if you are trying to grow a flower or vegetable garden here) If you have determined you have clay in your ground you might also want to view this list of plants for clay soil so you’re ahead of your growing game. If you’re wanting to plant veggies instead, here is a list of vegetables that grow in clay soil .

To keep flowers thriving, our little garden secret is to use a combination of Miracle Grow Moisture Control and Miracle Grow Garden Soil in the hole you dig as well as all around the plant (it’s the black dirt you see in the picture). Duplicate Picture for reference.

We’ve had much success with this stuff in our time dealing with a clay yard! Just take a look at our front yard flowers here that are taller than me! It’s purpose is to protect against over andunder watering and grows plants twice as big (versus unfed plants).

Here are some of my other gorgeous flower Perennial recommendations

Are Lava Rocks Good For Landscaping

The answer is yes, there are many benefits to lava rocks being used as landscaping for both plants and the appearance of your home. In fact, our plants have flourished in all our rock flower beds and it creates for dramatic cutting-edge curb appeal.

Who Sells Lava Rock For Landscaping

We found our black lava rock landscaping rocks at Lowes (this one), you can also buy lava rocks at Home depot. (here).

How to Install Lava Rock Landscaping

At this point, we are ready to pour out the bags of landscape rock onto our dirt and spread the rocks for coverage along the garden area. It’s important to adhere to the prior steps I mentioned above to prep your garden bed so you won’t run into high maintenance and a nuisance in your flower beds down the line.

Recap:
Remove all top layer grass

Dig so that your dirt is low enough and sits well with the surrounding area

Edge out a trench that is deeper than your bed so you won’t have to worry about rock displacement, instead they will lay up against your ground versus level with the ground.

Other Things You Can Do

(Optional) Lay Landscaping Fabric underneath the rock (we did not do this for this side of the house but we did for our Raised Flower bed in front of house).

Spray a Weed and Grass Killer (we sprayed ours along the edging of the rock that way it won’t be as difficult for my husband to weed eat or get too close with the mower). You can always install a rubber, plastic, or stone edging to combat these things. Edging materials will be useful if you’re planning on laying the landscaping fabric. If you go that route of the fabric, you will need to cut your holes in it for your plants.

The Finished Side Of The House: Adding The Lava Rock For Flower Beds

These are the photos that make me want to do a happy dance! It’s finished!!!

More Lava Rock Landscaping Ideas

In addition to the side yard, another Idea for using landscape rocks is to place landscaping around utility boxes. This doesn’t necessarily solve the ” hide utility box” dilemma, as you can tell, it’s still right in hind-sight but in my opinion, it looks so much better with the rock around it. My husband hated weed eating in between that thing! The dead grass is where he sprayed the weed killer around the rock as did before.

To make this bare spot look presentable, where our garden hose reel sits all summer long, we used some rock put underneath.

Another great uncommon idea is to use lava rock to go around other landscaping for decorative purposes. We did this to our front flower bed with what little black lava rock we had left.

Final Thoughts

This garden lava rock bed did not take very long at all to finish. We had it done in about two afternoons. We love the way it turned out so much. I don’t even see the garbage can, all I can see is pretty landscaping! The nice thing too, is the lava rock also gave the garbage can wheels a level grab since our yard has a little bit of a slope. What do you think of using lava rocks for landscaping?