cheap landscaping stones

If any of you live near a national forest, did you know you can get a permit for a small fee to collect rocks for your landscaping projects?

We live surrounded by the George Washington National Forest and we did this when we built our water gardens. It was $20 for up to 4 tons of rocks. You need to tell them where you want to collect because they may not own mineral rights for all areas.

And, no, we didn't try to haul 4 tons of rocks at once. We found places where there were plenty of nice rocks close to a spot where we could park and made numerous trips but it saved several hundred dollars in the cost of stone.

BTW, don't help yourself to any plants while you're out there. It's a federal offense. You can usually collect seeds, but check first.