Proverbs and sayings about May HORIZONTALLY: 2. May will deceive - in ... will leave.4 ....
What kind of decoration techniques do designers not use to transform ordinary personal plots in fabulous corners for a good rest. A dry stream is one of the most popular modern landscape design tools, in which there is not a single drop of water, but only stones imitating the bed of a dry stream. The main advantage of this "piquant" design element is that when deciding to create a dry stream with your own hands on a garden plot, the implementation of the idea does not require significant material costs.
The widely used decoration element originates from sunny Japan. In the country rising sun the element of water is associated with purity and a thirst for life, and the murmur is a symbol of the transience of time. Dry streams, which are very popular in Japanese gardens, are necessarily present in areas where water for any reason cannot be used as an element of landscape design. A dry stream in the garden, as an imitation of this element, allows you to create the impression that the water in the bed of the source has just dried up, and the first drops of rain will fill it with life-giving moisture again.
- The ability to create a dry stream with your own hands, without much effort and significant financial costs.
- The speed of erection: it takes only two to three days to choose a place, designate the channel of the stream and fill it with stones.
- Ease of care, which is limited only to maintaining the shape of the channel and removing weeds. While caring for a water stream involves timely cleaning of lime deposits and algae.
- The design of a dry stream by plants is not limited to anything. While for planting near a natural reservoir, the choice is limited only to moisture-loving flowers and plants.
- Safe for small children. In addition, in dry streams, unlike natural reservoirs, there are no mosquitoes that cause so much inconvenience for a good rest.
The dry stream bed does not require the purchase of expensive compressors, water supply and purification systems, which are a necessary attribute of the arrangement of natural reservoirs.
The dry stream will become optimal solution for plots of any garden style
We choose the shape of the structure and prepare stones
Proper planning of the placement of the bed of a dry stream in the country will make it possible to disguise the imperfections of the terrain. A narrow meandering brook visually deepens the space, making visually small garden somewhat large.
The device of a dry stream is a fascinating and easy-to-perform activity that allows you to embody ideas for creating original decoration, which will emphasize the sophistication of landscape design.
The contours of the stone stream are "drawn" based on the features of the forms and landscape of the garden area. The contour drawn with sand will allow you to preliminarily determine the shape of the future structure and its harmonious combination with the existing decor elements. The shape can be easily corrected by “writing” new contours with a thin line of sand, selecting best option, which will fit perfectly into the landscape of the area. Having decided on the shape and size of the stone structure, you can proceed to the choice of the nature of the material and its quantity.
One of the secrets that reveal how to make a dry stream that mimics the flow of water is the exclusion of clear boundaries and the heterogeneity of the structure.
A dry stream looks more beautiful and natural in the area, which does not have the same width along the flow simulation
Both large cobblestones and small pebbles are suitable for decorating the stream. Combination of stones various sizes, colors and textures allows you to create spectacular compositions that will be a bright addition to any direction of landscape design. You can get a gray-bluish brook by using slate, basalt and gneiss.
Red-brown shades acquire ponds made of granite, marble and limestone. A spectacular decoration of a stream can be pebbles painted waterproof paint, which gives a slight light in the dark. Stones exposed with a layer of varnish look no less original. Playing overflows in sunshine stones, give the compositions a "wet" effect.
The illusion of water flow can be easily obtained by supplementing the composition of stones with a scattering of glass granules or balls.
In order for the stone stream to be harmoniously combined with the natural landscape of the area, it is desirable to use local rocks in the arrangement of the structure. To create the effect of a stream, flat pebble stones are suitable, for a coastline - larger boulders. Irregularities of the terrain are successfully decorated with waterfalls made of stones of lighter shades.
Laying stones along the prepared contour
Having chosen a place and having decided on the contours of the structure and the materials of the composition, you can begin construction. A "trough" is dug along the contour marked with sand: a layer of earth 15-30 cm deep is removed. The surface of the "pit" is leveled with a rake. In order to avoid the growth of weeds that can spoil all the beauty of a dry stream, you should cover the bottom with a dark non-woven covering material that allows moisture and air to pass through, for example: geotextile or lutrasil. An alternative option may also be a thin layer of concrete or a polymer film. A leveled and covered surface can now be decorated with stones.
The main requirement for the design of a stone composition is conciseness and moderation.
Laying a stone reservoir begins with the "shores". Booth and cobblestones are used to support the inner edges, the pebble is used to fill crevices, the bed of the stone reservoir itself is covered with small pebbles.
Decoration of a stone pond with plants
Plants are an obligatory element in the design of a stone stream. A dry stream of flowers allows you to get the maximum effect of the similarity of a stone structure with a real reservoir.
When choosing plants for decorating the "shores" of a stone stream, you can use any shrub, decorative leafy and flowering plants. The main requirement is flower composition should be in harmony. When selecting plants, the illumination of the site, soil composition, moisture and temperature conditions. When designing the bed of a stone stream, it is advisable to use plants that actually grow in water.
Against the background of small pebbles, plants look spectacular, the color of which is associated with the water element, for example: large-leaved forget-me-not or creeping tenacious
Plants of blue-green shades with long leaves are also associated with water spaces. Spectacular decoration of a stone stream will be plants, the flowers of which are painted in juicy shades. of blue color. Among the beauties that bloom with all sorts of shades of blue, the following are suitable for decorating a reservoir: lobelia, obrietta, blue fescue, creeping tenacious, bearded iris, large-leaved bruner.
A good addition to the composition can be Chinese reed, pampas grass, willow sunflower, hosta, daylily, plantain sedge.
When planning a stone reservoir on your site, you can use the following plant design option: 1 - bamboo-leaf, 2 - varieties of bearded iris, 3 - lobelia, 4 - creeping tenacious, 5 - Poskharsky bell, 6 - hybrid forms of shaving, 7 - large-leaved bruner , 8 - awl-leaved bryozoan, 9 - red-leaved creeping tenacious, 10 - reed arundo
When creating a dry stream in the country, for the harmony of the composition, it is advisable to use more natural elements. A decorative wooden bridge looks very impressive against the background of a stream.
The decoration in the form of a dry stream bed will bring a touch of romance and wildlife to a monotonous landscape. Unlike the alpine slide, which has a similar aesthetic, a dry stream in the country or near the house can also have an applied value. If you build it along the path of communications, electrical wiring or water supply, you can provide easy access, especially to the joints, if repairs are needed.
With skillful planning, you can combine decorative effect with drainage that removes excess moisture from cultivated land.
Layout Features
To create a picture close to nature, you need to decide on the location and area that needs to be taken under a dry stream.
In areas with a slope, an imitation of a rocky mountain stream will look good. How less plot, the more compact this decorative element should look. A sinuous and sometimes expanding pattern completes the illusion.
The choice of location for the source and channel is also important. A stone brook can suddenly peep out of the thickets, and at the end of the serpentine flow into a decorative jug half buried in the ground.
For large-scale projects, a hill of boulders is built at the source, and a small decorative pond is laid out below.
On flat plots of land, the beds of decorative dry streams can be evenly lined or winding. Additional elements from plants, clay decor, artificial and road bridges will complement the design.
Nuances of construction
It is not difficult to make a dry stream with your own hands, you can give free rein to your imagination, and if the result does not justify itself, redo or reschedule finished project to another place.
V step by step the creation of this decor is as follows:
- Creating a project: choosing a place and materials, with a drawing of the trajectory and the placement of decorative accents.
- Channel marking. You can use string or wooden pegs. But in order to visualize the area occupied and re-align the pattern, it is better to draw a work area with a stream of sand.
- Digging a shallow (10-15 cm) canal. With a narrow channel, it is necessary to provide for the slope of the walls, which will allow you to save the pattern.
- Land clearing and ramming.
- Isolation of the channel with a waterproof material - construction or other polypropylene film.
- Laying stones along the coast line and filling the channel with small pebbles or expanded clay.
- Final styling.
When laying, you can use design tricks:
- Flat river stones set on edge or at an angle will create the effect of a fast current;
- For the illusion of a shallow, you can install a massive stone, with sand and pebbles randomly located right next to it;
- The color palette of the fill can be made darker towards the middle of the channel to create a depth effect;
- Glass balls and small mirror inclusions, as well as lacquered stones, will help create the effect of water.
When choosing materials, it is necessary to insure against possible injuries, to refuse cutting and sharp materials, or to place them out of reach of people. In the case of work on an inclined plane, the risk of collapse must be excluded.
Design ideas and styles
In order to get the effect as close as possible to the natural one, it is necessary not only to take into account the features of the site, but also to make additional seating. characteristic plants. This most difficult project to implement must be thought out to the smallest detail, only untreated natural material should be used for masonry.
To maintain the illusion, regular care and adjustment may be necessary. overall picture. This approach is more expedient to apply in the case when the features of the relief are as close as possible to the possibilities of imitation.
Semi-stylized options are used most often. At the same time, the wild beauty of the stones can be set off with a stylish decor that creates the impression of well-groomedness and allows you to individualize the project.
When laying, you can use blotches of painted stone, glass, shells. Sandboxes, bridges, flower beds located along the trajectory will help to enter new element into the general landscape.
Dry streams can supplement artificial reservoirs, alpine slides and gazebos, becoming a tool for zoning the territory. Examples design projects dry streams, presented in the photo, show all the variety of possible options.
Purely decorative designs are usually used to create children's fairy tales, with figurines of characters and blue pebbles that replace the water in the stream.
Another option is a geometrically outlined masonry created in a minimalist style from stones of the same size.
Photo of a dry stream
A dry stream is one of the most striking and original elements of landscape design, which you can do yourself, with minimal cost time, effort and - most importantly - money. The benefits of a dry stream are simply huge and undeniable: not only will it serve as a wonderful decoration for any garden plot, visually increasing its area and hiding relief defects, it will never become a “shelter for mosquitoes” that constantly hover over real water bodies, and will always be safe for little kids. We will talk with you in this article about how to build a dry stream on your own.
Just look at this dry stream:
Equipped according to all the rules, it gives the impression of a real one - created by mother nature herself, isn't it? It seems as if quite recently crystal clear water flowed here and just a few days ago it dried up. It seems that just a little rain is enough, and the dry stream will come to life again, will come back to life, generously filled with life-giving moisture. But even without water, it has a very calming effect on people, I would say magically.
Coming to us from the Land of the Rising Sun, a dry stream is one of the main elements of a rocky garden, its highlight, a symbol of water, meaning continuous movement. The fact is that in the East, water, or, in extreme cases, its imitation must be in the garden, without which its design is considered incomplete. That is why a dry stream serves, so to speak, as a “magic wand”, successfully imitating water where there is no way to create a real reservoir.
Dry Stream Benefits
A dry stream will fit perfectly into the design of any garden, not only emphasizing the landscape favorably, but also successfully complementing it. In addition, it will perfectly fulfill the role of a drainage groove, requiring much less money, effort and labor than a real streamlet. Another, simply huge advantage is that, unlike ordinary streams and reservoirs, a dry stream can be arranged anywhere: on hills and depressions, in the shade and in the sun - choose for yourself.
You can build an artificial stream and effectively arrange it in just a few days - during this time you will be able to choose a place for the device of the stream, mark the channel and carefully fill it with pre-selected pebbles. You will have to spend another day planting plants around a makeshift pond. At the same time, an ordinary reservoir will require remarkable forces from you: lowering the relief, leveling the landscape, deepening the channel ... Agree, it is quite difficult to perform all these manipulations on your own, which means you will have to use the services landscape designers or, in extreme cases, ordinary workers. And this again implies extra time and financial costs.
Another indisputable advantage of a dry stream is ease of maintenance: it does not need to change water, install various pumps, compressors and filters to prevent water stagnation. No need to build complex system supply and purification of water, purchase a special expensive film to line the bottom. Algae will never grow in it, giving the owners of reservoirs a lot of trouble, and the water itself will never exude bad smell, which, believe me, is not uncommon in artificial reservoirs.
And finally, no one will limit the choice of plants in order to arrange a dry stream: irises and hostas, miscanthus and ferns, while for planting near a reservoir you can only purchase moisture-loving flowers.
A dry stream is a universal, one might even say a unique element of landscape design. You can make it not only in the form of an ordinary stream, but also a dry lake. Yes, yes, lakes, this is also possible.
An equally beautiful artificial stream will turn out if its channel is laid out of rubble, and the banks are decorated with large stones.
You can build a spectacular dry stream not only from stones, but also from flowers. The ideal option v this case is the Poskharsky bell, the flowers of which are distinguished by a unique dark blue color, thanks to which they successfully imitate water flows.
The surface of a dry stream can be laid out with blue pebbles and gravel, or, for example, decorated with small blue glass granules, in general, fantasize and bring your fantasies to life.
Dry stream do it yourself
It is quite easy to build a dry stream on your own, for this you will only have to work a little. But first you need to decide on the shape and size of the future "reservoir", a place for its device and materials for construction. If you find it difficult to make such a choice yourself, look at the dry reservoirs already laid out, evaluate their advantages and disadvantages, choosing the option that suits you best.When choosing the size and shape, consider not only the relief of your garden plot, but also its area. So, for example, a dry lake will look great on a long and narrow section, and a winding brook - on the contrary, on a short and wide one, visually lengthening it and thereby deepening the space as much as possible.
Remember that, like any other stream, a dry stream must have a mouth and a source. The mouth will imitate the confluence of the stream into another "reservoir"; you can hide it behind a fence or large leaves of bergenia, canna, hosta and any other plants. It is better to place the source on a small elevation in order to designate it as expressively as possible. With the help of pebbles, lay out a small round recess that looks like a well: this way you will create the illusion of a source of water. It looks very nice when the stream “comes out” of the rock. To simulate this, it is necessary to build a hill from large stones.
The most popular materials for building a dry stream are pebbles, ideal for simulating a water surface, and fine gravel; they are sold in all hardware stores. In addition to the cheapness of these materials, their indisputable advantage is the most diverse range of colors: pebbles are most often light colors- gray-blue and gray, but gravel can be blue, blue-green, blue, and so on ... In addition to gravel and pebbles, basalt and slate are successfully used, they also have a gray-blue color.
You can place accents in the composition with the help of large stones and colored granite, which are also sold on numerous construction markets and hardware stores. Glass granules and balls will look very impressive blue-blue flowers, which will create the effect of living water, fervently sparkling in the sun and gently shimmering on cloudy days.
Having decided on the placement and material, you can start marking the site for the future dry stream. Ordinary sand is best suited for this, with the help of which we will outline the contours of the future "reservoir". You can change them an infinite number of times until you get the perfect shape, in your opinion.
A man-made brook can have only one winding channel, or maybe several branches at once. Keep in mind that the greatest, so to speak, “naturalness” of a stream can be given by a change in its width in different areas. If choosing a shape is difficult, just remember what a natural stream looks like in nature and try to recreate it with beautiful stones.
Having decided on the size and shape, we begin to prepare the surface, removing all the sod and leveling the ground with a rake. As a result, in the place where the dry stream will be located, the soil will become lower than the soil around, by about 10-15 centimeters. You should not overdo it with a recess either: a too concave stream will look unnatural, remember this.
Then, over the area of the proposed “channel”, it is necessary to pour a fairly dense layer of sand 3-5 centimeters thick and lay any covering material, thanks to which weeds will not germinate to the surface.
The ideal material is a polymer film or geotextile, but if they are not at your disposal, you can use a cheaper, similar construction material.
After the foundation is ready, we lay the largest stones, outlining the boundaries of the stream with them, and line its channel with smaller gravel or pebbles.
Having successfully completed the construction of a dry stream, you can start planting plants around it.
Try not to overdo it with tall plants - their excessive number will only “overload” the shore, as a result, your stream will turn into an ordinary flower bed.
Although, in principle, in the choice of plants, as I wrote above, you are not limited. Try only to stop the choice on those that are associated with water - they have blue flowers or blue-yellow leaves: daylilies, Chinese reed, pampas grass, lobelia, creeping tenacious, blue fescue.
You can effectively design a stream not only with the help of vegetation, but also using various decorative elements. So, for example, a very colorful addition would be a sandbank created in the very center of the stream, or a small wooden decorative bridge, simply thrown over the stream.
It will add color to the composition and make the rocky masterpiece even more “watery”.
Now you know how to build a dry stream with your own hands. I hope that after reading this article, you will be inspired and create another masterpiece that will decorate your garden plot, making it more expressive and colorful. And I, and all other visitors of the site, will look at your man-made masterpieces with great pleasure!
A stream, like happiness, does not need to be expected from nature, you can make it with your own hands. It will be about the most spectacular imitation - stone.
Own reservoir for suburban area difficult to build, but there is a very interesting and inexpensive alternative to a noisy river - a dry stream. For its construction, you do not have to think about water circulation and buy a pump, simple work can be done on your own, while spending a little money and effort. An imitation of a mountain stream may well appear on your site, even if there is no man in the house. Take on arms ready-made ideas, but be sure to complement them with your own highlights.
Features and benefits of a dry stream
It is easy to guess that the birthplace of a dry stream, like other elements of landscape design made of stone, is Japan. In appearance, the man-made structure resembles a natural stream after a long drought, it seems that it only fell asleep for a short time, but will soon come to life and play again. During heavy rains, the artificial channel is filled with water, instantly revitalizing it.
In addition to the decorative function, a dry stream in the country helps to hide communications, organize rainwater runoff and hide pipes and flexible hoses for watering gardens and orchards. You can create an imitation of a babbling river on a site of any size and with any landscape. The advantage of this design element is ease of care and lack of requirements for plants - almost any specimens can be planted along impromptu banks, regardless of their moisture requirements.
Another huge plus of the stone stream is the indifference of mosquitoes to it. On the shore of such a reservoir, it will be possible to calmly relax on a summer evening without poisoning yourself with mosquito repellents.
