Rocks and Waterfalls in Your Garden
A step-by-step guide: boulders, rockeries, ponds, streams and cascades built with your own hands
Polish title: «Sztuczne skały i wodospady w ogrodzie». A guide for people who have never worked with mortar and want a garden that looks as if the rocks had always been there.
Polish edition only · Premiere 26 October 2026Tell Me When It's Out Look Inside
Polish e-book (EPUB) · 39 zł on Empik · ISBN 978-83-69104-29-4 · Aleks Svirydzenka, Artisan Aleks Company
A rock garden you build yourself
Most guides show a finished garden and skip the part where it goes wrong. This one is written by a man who has built artificial rock for parks and zoos since 2008, and it starts at the beginning: what to buy, what it costs and what to do on the first Saturday.
You will make your first boulder from polystyrene, learn the mesh-and-mortar method for larger rocks, give the surface a stone texture, paint it like granite, and build a pond and a waterfall that do not leak, with a pump of the right size. Then comes planting, hypertufa planters, winter care and the twenty mistakes the author sees most often.
Please note: this guide is published in Polish only.
A good garden rock does not come from a quarry. It comes from a plan, a weekend and the patience to let each layer dry.Rocks and Waterfalls in Your Garden
For people who want to do it themselves
Owners of a house with a garden
A rockery, a pond or a waterfall at a fraction of what a contractor would charge, and the knowledge to do it properly.
Allotment gardeners
Small projects that fit a plot: boulders, planters, a stream and a pond.
Small garden companies
Methods and price lists you can bring to a customer, and a checklist of mistakes to avoid.
Beginners who have never touched mortar
Every step is explained from zero, with the tools and quantities you need.
One boulder, from block to finish
The guide follows a single boulder through eight stages, so you can see what each layer should look like before you start the next one.
Everything from the shopping list to winter
Practical, in plain language, with prices, quantities and checklists. No special workshop and no previous experience needed.
1Before you start
- Shopping list with prices
- Day-by-day plan for a weekend project
- Tools you really need
2Your first boulder
- The first EPS (polystyrene) boulder, step by step
- Mesh-and-mortar rock for larger shapes
3Surface and colour
- Texture that looks like stone
- Granite-like painting and patina
4Water in the garden
- A pond and waterfall without leaks
- Pump sizing: how much power you need
5Plants and planters
- Hypertufa planters
- Plants for rockeries and water edges
6Years after
- Winter care
- 20 common mistakes and how to avoid them
Polish e-book, 39 zł
The guide is published as an e-book in Polish on Empik. The premiere is on 26 October 2026; leave a message and you will hear the day it appears.
E-book (EPUB) ISBN 978-83-69104-29-4 · Polish language only
The Truth About Artificial Rockwork
Not a book about fake rock, but about the distance between how things look and what they really are. Second, revised and expanded edition.
Discover the book →
Artificial Stone: 400 Years of Illusion
Four centuries of stone that never came out of a quarry — from Renaissance grottoes to zoos without bars and Disney's Matterhorn, told by a sculptor who builds it.
Discover the book →
Small Living World
How to turn what science knows about an animal's life into real decisions: brief, budget, barrier, ground, water and the rock the animal lives on every day.
Discover the book →
Building Worlds
A step-by-step professional textbook for universities, architects, designers and creators of immersive environments — from concept to final result.
Discover the book →