How To Make A Dry Creek Bed

Are you ready to transform your yard? Go from eww to new in just a few weeks! Follow along as we show you how to make a dry creek bed for your front yard.

Our home sits on a corner lot and we’ve always felt this huge responsibility to set the tone for the rest of the street. Unfortunately, we ignored our front yard for many years as we updated the inside of the house. Finally in 2021, two years into the pandemic, we had all the time on the world to work on the front yard.

Before

The yard had a strip of grass, a bit of barkdust, random plants, and two rose bushes that I just really hated. It was so dreary and depressing. Honestly, I could barely look at it.

The Inspiration

We really wanted to create a modern/organic yard that incorporated aspects of the Pacific Northwest valley’s with modern elements like a wood deck and cement slabs. We drew our inspiration from creeks, rivers, and the valley’s around the Oregon coast.

I’ll talk more about the whole yard process in another blog post but for now, I’m going to share how we designed the dry creek bed.

How To Make A Dry Creek Bed

We had a little bit of prep to do before making the creek bed. We had to remove a tree and all of the grass from the yard. Prep will be different for everyone but the best tip I can give you is to start with a clean canvas. Remove what needs to be removed in order to start with just good ol’ dirt.

Map Out The Space

Mapping out the space for the dry creek bed is important because once you start, it’s a lot of work to move it. In our case, we were not going to remove the tree stump (to save money) so we decided to use it to our advantage. We wanted the dry creek bed to be concave in the middle, so we used the stump as a side high point of the creek bed.

We knew that we would be digging down a bit to get the shape we wanted so we also called 8-1-1 to assess any power or gas lines in our yard before digging. Check your specific state/area for the number to call. It was a free service for us, and they arrived within 48 hours to assess and spray for lines. Luckily, our power/sewer/gas lines were mostly on the other side of the yard. YAY!

Select The Rock

I took a trip to our local rock yard to hand pick the rock we wanted to create the dry creek bed. I was trying to do this project on a budget so I went for the least expensive option. Its basalt rock (pictured on the left). This rock is very organic looking and comes in a variety of sizes. At our local rock yard, it was about $.49 per pound.

I knew I wanted a few really large rocks to create a wall on the back end of the creek bed and then a variety of small to medium rocks to create the main shape. I picked out 3 large boulders (that would need to be delivered). One was 800 lbs. (about $400), one was 500 lbs. (about $250), and one was 150 lbs. (about $75). This was the most expensive part of the project. Then I picked out a cart full of medium basalt rock (small enough for me to lift) and took that home myself. In addition to the basalt rock, we had two yards of 2″-6″ river rock delivered as well. The small rock creates the inside bed of the creek.

And can we take a moment to see the delivery process?! And all the sweat that went into moving these rocks…

Form The Creek Bed

Rocks in a front yard to form a dry creek bed.

Using the natural shape of our yard, we started with the large rock to create the main focal point of the creek bed. We then placed medium basalt rock around to create the main shape of the entire creek bed. This took some time. We tested out different placement until we settled on the shape of the creek bed.

The shape was coming along, but we couldn’t figure out what to do for the top and the bottom of the creek bed. We landed on creating a tip to finish off the top and the bottom.

Dig The Creek Shape

Once the outline of the rock was placed, we started digging! And when I say “we”, I mean my husband did it all. hahaha! We didn’t dig super deep. We dug in a stair shape in order to create the look we wanted.

The excess dirt was used to build up the sides of the creek. Looking into the future, we knew we would be planting flowers and plants around the creek bed, and would need dirt patches.

Fill In With Small Rock

A man and a woman in a front yard placing rocks in the yard.

Once the main shape is created by large rock, you can then fill in the creek bed with the smaller river rock. We placed each rock by hand. Every. Single. One. It took about a week to get it exactly how we wanted. Larger rock starts on the outer edges and gradually gets smaller as the creek concaves.

After

Of course I’m obsessed with our dry creek bed, but the best part is the people who drive by and take pictures of the yard. Tim and I sit outside and just stare at this beautiful dry creek bed. The plants around the creek bed make it even more beautiful. I’ll talk more about that in the next blog post.

Tips

You can do this project on a budget by foregoing the large boulders. Just use large river rock.
Some suggest to lay down landscape fabric before placing the rock. You can do this, but we opted out of this option. We eventually wanted plants and ground cover to grow between the rocks so we did not use the fabric.
We use a product called Preen – weed preventer to prevent weeds from growing in between the rocks.
The rock will settle a bit, so plan on using a few buckets of rock to restock the dry creek bed about one year later.

A beautiful front yard with a dry creek bed.

I hope you love this project as much as I do! We are absolutely in love with this dry creek bed and can’t wait for all the plants to grow in around it.

If you like this, check out my idea pin with our backyard makeover!

PIN FOR LATER!