No, it's not o.k. to take rocks from parks and woodlands. It's illegal to remove anything from a park and it's stealing to remove something from a woodland which is owned by someone.

Last year, a person went up and down the road I live on taking from along the roadside. The police caught him and he was cited for trespassing and theft.

Join Freecycle and post that you want some rocks - I'll bet you'll find someone willing to get rid of some.

If your county or township Public Works has a home waste drop off point, check there. When I went to ours last year to pick up compost, I noticed the sorted piles of refuse all over the property: window glass, pressure treated lumber and bricks, concrete, rocks. The place is a gold mine of reusable stuff.

Someone on another board said that they asked permission to pick up some rocks from a construction site where foundation excavation was taking place. It seems that the guys thought that was pretty funny, but they let her have the rocks.

I saw a brazen act of rock stealing just the other day. There's a boarded up house by the side of a highway not far from my home; the property is being sold as a commercial site. A guy with a pickup was prying pavers out of the front yard - at rush hour!

We stopped at a Yard/ Moving Sale at a home about 1/2 mile from the lower Delaware River once. The family had gathered some nice big rocks from along the river over the years. They were sad about moving, but were happy that some nut offered them money for their rocks and that they found a good home. I have bought many garden items from such sales since.

Dear Gerania, I have (with permission) removed many usable landscape items from businesses that were going to be demolished over the years. What I take, they don't have to pay to haul away. At one Estate Sale, I got a truck load of beautiful old bricks for $20.00 and the guy helped me load them! People think you are crazy. They make money off something they may not have marked for sale. You get some beautiful rocks that someone collected over a lifetime for $20.00 and you don't have to risk being chased by a farmer or property owner that needs the rocks there for stability of a slope.

SURE, I say go ahead and take the small rocks from the park - just be sure to do it inconspiciously. Wait till the evening when it's dark, and just pull your car up as close as possible to the area, pop open your trunk, and start tossing the rocks in. I would also recommend to pick up the rocks from different locations, so that it's not obvious to others that a huge chunk of rocks are missing from one single location. GODSPEED!

We have a pile of red shale small rocks--more like gravel---in our front yard you are welcome to come & take any time.

We are pulling them out of the ground from where the septic installers dumped them on top of the topsoil, as they backfilled following the installation of a new system.

I use to see a lot of people looking for rocks when areas of road work were being done. I would see more than one person looking at once. Now, though, a lot of these places are fenced in and they probably worry about injury and being sued.
Anyway, just keep an eye out for construction. It's a good source.