Which came first...the house or the boulder?
Poorly placed boulders are a common landscaping mistake. They are often out of scale with the house and surrounding plant material. Boulders are often simply placed on top of the ground, where they feel unnatural and unstable. Sakuteiki, a centuries old Japanese gardening manual, indicates that poor positioning of rocks in the the landscape may bring bad fortune to the inept designer,* so beware! 
The goal is to have the boulder feel as if it has been there forever, placed eons ago by some unknown force of nature. Place boulders so their unique characteristics are shown to best advantage. A good rule of thumb is to dig out below ground level (G.L. in the accompanying illustration) so that approximately one-third of the boulder is below ground. Use the appropriate equipment if the boulder is too large to be manuevered manually.
Send us your examples of boulders that should be bashed!
* Source for the quote and the illustration is the wonderful book: A Japanese Touch For Your Garden - Kiyoshi Seike, Masanobu Kudo, David H. Engel
