If it were me, I would rake them out now. Of course try to be careful around the plants, but I suspect you may want to replace some of the rock layer with some compost. Have it ready when you rake, so you can recover newly exposed plant bases that should stay underground. Doesn't look to me like your flowers are lacking nutrients, so maybe that will be all you'll need.

Remember too, that you want to keep a slight grade away from the house to keep water away from the foundation. Removing the rock may destroy this grade, and you might have to compensate.

Thanks for your advice. As for the grading next to the house, well it could easily stand to be improved and replacing the rock with other stuff will make that an easy task. The plants are all doing fine but the soil looks so powdery compared to the rest of my yard. I may also remove the two large hostas that burn up in the sun and use that prime location for more roses. Hah! Now I can justify buying a couple more..

Hi there-
I remember seeing ads and hearing comments here last year about a vaccume that you can rent to suck up garden rocks- you might have to call around to the rental stores to see who may be carrying them- it may be that the area you are working in is small enough that you may not need it though-
I bet you could list the rocks on Craig's list and some one may come and haul them away for you if you don't have another use for them-
I have also put the cart before the horse and plunked in plants into new beds without ammending first- and have found that top dressing does help- as does ammending the soil as you dig- I always try to make a bigger deeper hole and add compost to the soil there before I put in a new plant and as I lift and divide. In some areas- especially along my south wall, I have added peat to increase moisture retentiveness as well-
I agree with Rick- your plants do look happy and healthy there- I do believe you have chosen well for that site!

Do you have a powerful shop vac? That's what some people use to remove rock. My daughter had it around her place. We raked first, then hand picked where she had planted stuff and then shop vac'd....Amending the soil would be best if you can remove the plants and get them righ back in or just top dress if that isn't possible.

I am completely mystified by a vacuum strong enough to pick up rocks, and not consume a cup of dirt along with. But I'm not knocking it! Whatever works is what I say. I guess I am blessed with no mulch rocks to deal with. In fact, when I bought this house, it had two shrubs and an arborvitae as foundation plants and they mowed around them.

I hate landscape pepples(used in place of woodchips or other mulch). I had a heck of a time getting them out of a bed I was revamping for my sister. They're way too permanent and too much of a pain to change out!
Your space looks great that you planted- if you can't get rid of all that rock there are plenty of plants that love well draining powdery alkaline soil -like sedums, pinks, and purpal sage

We have this problem several places around the yard and decided to dig it all out. I made a screen that we use for separating the rock from soil. The screen rests on top of the wheelborrow; we dig up the rock/soil mix, drop it onto the screen, move it back and forth with the shovel, and the soil drops through, leaving the rock in the screen. It is some work, but does a real good job.

That's how we did it too, gary. Only we had TWO layers of dirt and weed infested rocks, with plastic under each layer. What a pain in the (every part of the body, really)!

Landscaping rock ranks up there as one of the dumbest ideas of mankind.

My whole backyard was landscaped in lava rocks. I first started by adding plants between the rocks. Just dig a bigger hole twice the size of the plant and filled it with good soil and popped the plant in. Then I needed more room so I started moving rock bucket by bucket. I used a hand towel that had 4 claws which I raked and raked. SOme of my rock was 7 inches deep. I still am moving rock to this day. My backyard rock is mostly gone where I have several perennial gardens. In my front yard I am moving the lava rock and putting hostas in. I have maybe 40 different varieties of Hostas and theres rock all around them. I should of removed all the rock but eventually I probably will. THe only advantage of the rock is that plants tend not to spread. Best of Luck!

leavesweave - same here! I was so excited when we first moved into our house becuase the previous owner had ripped out all the old overgrown srubs and had put in minimal new stuff. Clean slate I thought -this will be fun. Then with the first shovel I found that the previous landscape rock and plastic had NOT been removed - they just put dirt over top of it. Uhg. How STUPID? And he PAID someone to do this!

Thanks you guys. It looks like I'm not the only one that has this to deal with. I just hate rock around the house! I know getting rid of it is well worth the work. I guess it's just time to get to it. I suppose the snow has to melt first though... I would like to expand that area a little more. Maybe leave enough grass so I can make 1 pass with the lawn mower. That area is completely safe from my dogs so I want to make the most of it.

I have several large sections of shrubs and weeds and landscape rock around the house that I want to remove. I started and a friend told me about a rock vacuum. I went to look at one at the rental company and it was quite large on a trailer. I would see the only way to get this into the backyard would be to drive it over the lawn around the house behind the car. Quite a project and i am concerned about damage to the lawn. Even in the front yard it would be a project and they want $200.00 a day to rent this so I would have to work fast. Does anyone know of a smaller rock vacuum? I see someone mentioned a shopvac but I can't see that picking up 1.5" river rock. This vacuum does have a filter for the dirt so that wouldn't be a problem. Any and all suggestions would be appreciated.