Building a Rock Garden for my Jeeps

Ever since I built my house in 1993, I have wanted some form of rock feature in the front yard. I started work on a water fall once but got discouraged by the cost and thought of constant upkeep.

Since I began using my Jeep off road instead of rally racing, I have wanted my own rock garden to test and play on. However, I have not been willing to invest money in buying rocks. Whoever coined the phrase “Dirt Cheap’ has obviously never bought dirt or rocks.

Here in east Tennessee there are usually rocks lurking just under the surface anywhere you dig. My property is no exception. There have been two large rocks lying beside my driveway that were removed when it was built.

Yesterday with some help from my neighbor and his tractor with a front bucket, I moved them into place to begin the rock garden. Moving them was a bit more difficult than I expected. I had expected him to simply scoop them up in the bucket and carry them up the drive way and drop them into place.

First of all the rocks turned out to be larger than I realized once they were separated form the dirt that partially covered them. That was a nice surprise in a way but not for the plan we had in place for moving them.

Plan B consisted of lifting a corner of the rock enough to get a log chain under it and dragging the rocks into place. Josh used his loader to lift a corner of the rock while I slipped in a wooden chock. We then used a shovel to help work the chain under and around the rock. He then used the 4wd tractor to drag the rock along the gravel driveway. It worked well to grade out the high center some at the same time.

We stacked the two rocks in a partially overlapping manner. The stack comes just to the rock rail on my Jeep when straddling it making it the perfect height for testing and posing for photos.

Next I will add some smaller rocks around the two large ones to make the entry and exit more interesting. I will also be on the look out for some larger rocks to add to the collection.