Gardening on the Moon ( GOTM )

Written by Jeff

Rocks by the Yard

A trip to the rock yard is a very interesting experience. I had never been to a rock yard until I moved to the desert and I have been to a number of them since moving. The process is quite interesting and this is based on my visit to MDI Rock in Phoenix. Your experience may differ so check the protocol in the business office.

If it is the first time visit, pick a cooler day to walk around, perhaps one with clouds. If you are going to buy a small quantity of small-sized rocks (one-inch, gravel, sand, etc.) that day, bring a shovel. There are shovels at the rock yard, but they are sometimes difficult to find. You will also need buckets. We use five-gallon buckets the kind that can be bought at Home Depot, Lowes or other hardware stores.

Stop by the office and get a price list. The names of the various offerings should be on the list. As you walk around, take notes about the names of the types of rocks that appeal to you and check them on the list. Many rock yards have displays that show off the different types, sizes and colors of rocks. They make them look very appealing because this is what sells. Yes, even rocks need marketing.

Delivery Room and Other Considerations

Keep in mind that there is generally a delivery charge unless a minimum order is reached and then perhaps the delivery will be free. When we visited MDI rock, we needed eleven tons of rip rap at about $60 a ton. Delivery was $60, but it was free if we bought a minimum of twelve tons so for the same amount of money, we took the extra ton of rip rap which we used for a later project. Read all the terms of the agreement to get a complete understanding about what the company requires for delivery. At the delivery site, you will need to prepare a place for the material to be dumped. If you use a driveway, you might have to take a car out of the garage and park it somewhere else.

On most lists, the company will provide a formula to determine how much material is needed to cover a certain amount of surface area so it is advisable to get a good idea of approximately how much square footage is going to be covered. Do the best estimation that you can to avoid having so much material left over that it becomes a burden to store. We found the people in the office to be helpful when discussing how much material might be needed. Most gardeners could probably use a little extra, but that would depend on your situation. We live in the desert on a relatively large piece of land so we store the excess in piles out of the way and use them for projects that arise. I am planning on building a raised garden bed this fall made out of left over rip rap from a dry river bed project.

One thing that may or may not be abundantly clear when visiting the rock yard is that when ordering rip rap, a large percentage of the tonnage is considered waste (not rip rap). Some if it is very small pieces of stone and some of it is dust-like material. Now don’t get discouraged because for the desert gardener these all have good uses which I will cover in a future post.

The Purchasing Process

We sometimes stop by to get a couple of buckets of rocks or a few boulders for a variety of projects. At this point we know our way around the yard. The first thing we do is have the car weighed. Once weighed, we head to the type of rock that we want and fill several buckets with the same material. The rocks are stored in numbered bins and there is generally a map indicating which type of rock is in which numbered bin.

In the past, we made a mistake in purchasing the wrong type of rock either because we didn’t read the map correctly. If you are trying to match a color, bring samples with you. Try to go to the rock yard when the light is not at its brightest. Between 10:30 am and 3:00 pm in the summer desert, the light can be very bright making it difficult to see accurately the actual color of the rock. Moving to a shaded area could also be helpful.

Once the rocks are in the buckets and loaded into the car, we return to the scale and have the car weighed again. When the math is done, it is easy to figure out how many pounds/tons of rock we have. When we are picking up the rock, we often don’t have enough poundage so we pay the minimum price which is generally between five and six dollars for a couple of five-gallon buckets of rock. When compared to bags of similar rocks sold at the box stores, this is a bargain. Of course when you are picking up rocks this way, you can only get one type at a time because of the procedure used to determine the weight.

I think that once you visit the rock yards you will find more and more uses for these landscaping materials. The two rock companies we have dealt with are MDI and Pioneer at their north-Phoenix locations and we have found them to be very professional and reliable.

Happy Hardscaping!

Desert Gardener’s Best Friend- Part I – http://www.gardeningonthemoon.com/2008/10/22/hardscape-desert-gardeners-best-friend/

Article references:

MDI rock – www.mdirock.com
Pioneer rock – http://www.pioneersand.com/

Gardening on the Moon, www.gardeningonthemoon.com, originally published this post