Patch Blog: Rockin' and Rollin' in the Local Quarry

My husband and I recently moved into a 1920s bungalow here in town.  With the prospect of reducing our "carbon footprint" and looking toward more sustainable gardening, we determined to see what could be done with our yard.  The space itself is quite large, yet, there was an old rotted deck that had to be torn out, along with a circa 1960s redwood hot tub that was totally defunct.  What we were left with was a huge plot of dirt. 

We resolved to have a good old fashioned cottage garden with Mediterranean touches as our climate is similar enough that it would support many drought tolerant plants.  The first thing we had to do was cover all that dirt!  We looked at various ground covers and settled on the idea of a pea gravel. Sourcing the amount we needed would have cost us a new car if we purchased bagged rock from our local home improvement center so we took to the Internet to see if we could find a better alternative. 

What we found was United Rock Products here in town at the edge of Monrovia and Irwindale.  United Rock Products is that big quarry we all see on the West side of the 605 after the interchange. We made a phone call to the quarry to ask if they sold to the public. Now while this is not their typical customer, they welcomed us to come on down and visit the office to have a chat about what we needed for our little yard. 

United Rock Products looks like a big industrial construction site no matter how you slice it, yet, what we discovered was some of the nicest folks on the planet!  We found the entrance to the site, drove under the big silos and pulled up to the office just as the salesman was parking his car.  He greeted us and invited us to come sit with him and discuss our yard.  We gave him our measurements and he calculated the square footage, then converted that figure into tons.  Next thing you know, we have a quote for 8 TONS of rock for our yard.  It sounded like so much! The best part of the deal was it would only cost us pittance in comparison to the price we figured from the home improvement center. 

We scheduled the truck for the following week and a nice man with a huge dump truck backed into our 1920s slurry coated drive and poured our rock out just and gently as can be.  I was terribly impressed with his aptitude with his truck.  I could never maneuver that huge vehicle like that!  The resulting pile of rock was so small!  How could that be 8 TONS? 

My folks came over for a "rock spreading party" the next weekend. We spent the better part of a Sunday with shovels, rakes and a wheelbarrow hauling the rock around the yard. The funniest thing happened.  That pile was never ending!  What looked to us like this bitty little pile of pea gravel ended up being more than enough gravel to cover our backyard, our parking pad, our side yard and fill the hole left by the redwood hot tub.  Our yard looks like it should be somewhere in Italy with all this gravel!  It is gorgeous and it was so inexpensive compared to the cost we would have spent at the home improvement center. We are ready to winter over and start our planting. 

I am so grateful to all the wonderful folks at United Rock Products for being so neighborly, fair and just being the kind of business that makes a person want to spread the good word about an ominous looking industrial site that is really a nice place to do business with.

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