Landscape Rock—Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

At my St Paul house, we had a hedge of dwarf winged euonymus. And instead of using mulch, we decided river rock would look tidier. And, it did look tidy – for about 3 weeks. (Or was it 3 minutes?) Then, twigs got in there and tree seeds and weed seeds and oh my gosh were those hard to pull because they were wedged in by the rocks! Raking was impossible. My ex was so obsessed about keeping it tidy, he got out there with a broom and tried to sweep the debris away! And, so I learned that rock isn’t as low maintenance as it first sounds.

When I saw the cubed shrubs at my new home, also in a bed of river rock, I knew both had to go. This proved more difficult than I anticipated because the river rock was 8 inches deep. So, before I could get a shovel in the ground to dig the shrubs out, I had to move a lot of rock. I stopped counting at 12 wheelbarrows full. I managed to give away about 30 5-gallon buckets and tried to get rid of the rest on several local free sites. But two years later, I still have a small pile. Seems like I was not the only one who was trying to unload their landscape rock.

Am I the only one who has had an idea that seemed great at the time that turned out to be not so great?