Some crevice gardens look like regular gardens where flowering plants cover all the rocks. Others look more like rocky alpine mountainsides.
I'm back from a week in Colorado and the 2019 Garden Bloggers Fling. As usual I went a little crazy with the photos (over 2,000...) so it's going to take awhile to work through them all. We saw fabulous gardens and met some really wonderful gardeners. I'm left with memories of rocks, lots of rocks. Rocks in crevice gardens, crushed rock mulch, boulders in the landscape, stacked rocks...and on and on. Plant-wise, sempervivum top my list, along with opuntia and yucca. Sure there were lots of iris, peonies, poppies and the like, but you know me, pretty flowers don't keep me entertained for long. Several years ago I wrote a story for the Oregon Association of Nurseries on crevice gardens. For that story I had the pleasure of interviewing Kenton Seth, of Grand Junction, CO, he's a leader in the design and building of crevice gardens here in the U.S.. One of the gardens we visited on the first day of the Fling, Carol and Randy Shinn’s garden, included a couple of Kenton's creations. I look forward to sharing more images from the Shinn's garden, until then I hope you enjoy this trio of vignettes. Weather Diary, June 18: Hi 73, Low 55/ Precip 0 Wednesday Vignettes are hosted by Anna at Flutter & Hum. All material © 2009-2019 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.
15 Rare seeds of the amazing Native Fame Flower! Phemeranthus rugospermus, or Fame Flower, is a unique and rare perennial Native wildflower with succulent leaves and showy little pink flowers that put on a display in the evening sunset, perfect for winding down after a long work day. Their succulent habit helps them survive in a narrow ecological niche in dry, open, sandy locations with little competition; perfect for rock gardens, crevice gardens, or the dry spot in your garden! Rare in their natural habitat This plant is also known as Talinum rugospermum, False Fame Flower, Prairie Fame Flower, Phemeranthus rugospermum Native Habitat: Sand or sandy soils, dunes, mounds, flats, banks, ridges, edges of igneous or metamorphic rock outcrops, along or near watercourses Seeds need around 60 days of cold stratification to germinate, and small seeds need light to germinate so leave seeds on soil surface.
I GET ALL PANICKY when people say something is a “rock-garden plant,” certain that they mean it’s miniature and precious and finicky–a.k.a. something I’ll kill...
What is a crevice garden? What are the secrets to crevice garden design? Today, the experts at J&S Landscape answers your questions with our complete guide.
Make the most of your yard and garden with a few of these fantastic crevice garden ideas. Your crevice garden will look amazing with these great plants!
As a perennial student, I'm fascinated with new ways of gardening and different garden styles. Plus, to keep things even more interesting, I'm always up fo
A crevice garden is a growing trend. These rocky gardens mimic natural settings and provide an interesting focal point. Click for more.
This artful, drought-resistant gardening style is the backyard hack you've been looking for.
As a perennial student, I'm fascinated with new ways of gardening and different garden styles. Plus, to keep things even more interesting, I'm always up fo
A rock garden star, Dianthus petraeus ssp. noeanus (Rock Pink) features tiny deeply fringed white flowers, like tiny snowflakes, in mid-summer. The fragrant flowers attract bees and butterflies. This hardy perennial is a nice addition to a rock garden, steppe garden, crevice garden, or small space. The feathery foliage forms evergreen mats, and when mass planted, it makes a great groundcover.
As taught by Kenton The raw materials: Rocks I like to find rocks that were once whole and which broke naturally so that they fit tog...
It's interesting to me how you can look at something for years, without really seeing it. Then one day, suddenly, your eyes clear and you wonder how you—FOR YEARS—didn't really see... That mossy rock above, and below, is what I'm currently looking at, and really seeing. It annoys me. Several years ago a longtime neighbor moved into a housing situation where she wasn't able to take many garden "things" with her, including this rock that she'd hauled around previously from home to home. So she gave it to me. She brought it over and we dropped it right there, and that's where it's stayed, for years. YEARS. I liked it, I brought home those three smaller rocks and dropped them there, thinking they all belonged together. It was pretty inspired, right? Wrong. So fast forward to when this image popped up on the Hardy Fern Foundation's Instagram page, I think actually it may have been in their "stories", because I can't find it now. Anyway, that's an Asplenium trichomanes growing out of a vertical rock surface. I happened to have a couple of Asplenium trichomanes kicking around... ...the wheels started to turn. I gathered some other rocks from around the garden... And then things got serious. What I was planning was essentially a mini-crevice garden. The soil here is so compact and full of tree roots that I can't easily plant in it, so I was thinking of planting on it and hoping that over time the roots of the plants would be able to work into the soil underneath. But I couldn't use just Asplenium trichomanes. I mean as fabulous as it is I obviously needed a feature fern. And it just so happened that I had two very fancy and expensive pyrrosia hidden in my oblong stock tank. Don't bother looking because there's no chance you'll find them. Here they are, Pyrrosia lingua 'Hiryu'... And Pyrrosia lingua 'Kei Kan'. I need to liberate both of them, but in our current dry and hot conditions I went with 'Kei Kan' because it was easier to lift. I'll return to 'Hiryu' another time. So, time to build! Of course it bothered me that my large rocks were so different. One round, one angular, and one midrange and darker in color. I have hope that eventually more moss will grow to cover them and make them more similar than different. I moved the gravel mulch away from the rocks and dug down so their edges were in contact with, or beneath the surrounding soil. Then all the ferns were pressed into the cracks with more soil added and worked in around the rocks. Once I added as much soil as possible, I then top dressed everything with moss. Moss makes everything better. Here's a landscape image to give you perspective on where this small planting is. Follow the short pathway between the garage (brown structure) and the magnolia trunk and it's just to the left of the second large concrete paver. To the bottom right of the stock tank on the left. Here... Please be sure to admire the large container of Pyrrosia lingua 'Cristata' on the left, above. Former Hardy Plant Society board member and all around kind person Shari MacDonald gave me a large pot of Pyrrosia lingua 'Cristata' which I divided and still had that large clump to pot up. It's magic! Anyway, back to the new "crevice" planting. Truth be told I wonder how much this image from Kenton Seth might have influenced my creating this small planting? Obviously his is on an entirely different scale. But they're both a rock planting on the ground level, hugging the side of a large container. I dunno, maybe I flatter myself. Or maybe it's a case of inspiration percolating. Either way I am happy with the look of the thing. Moss, rocks, ferns... three of my favorite things! A note for those of you who follow my blog via email subscription. Blogger (Google) announced earlier this year they were discontinuing the follow by email option in July. Here it is September and those emails are still being sent, surprising, but I expect them to end any day now. I have not yet migrated my subscribers to a new service. I hope to do so soon, but I thought it was also worth warning you that your emails may end abruptly. I’ll still be posting here Monday, Wednesday, and Friday though, so click on over anytime for the latest! All material © 2009-2021 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.
Crevice gardens are unusual in Austin, and Coleson's is planted with hardy succulents, cacti, and perennials. In April it was all in flower.
If you are searching for peace and tranquility, you will want to check out this incredible alpine garden in Vail.
As a perennial student, I'm fascinated with new ways of gardening and different garden styles. Plus, to keep things even more interesting, I'm always up fo
Make the most of your yard and garden with a few of these fantastic crevice garden ideas. Your crevice garden will look amazing with these great plants!
Crevice gardens are gardens created in the nooks and crannies between rock groupings. Here are some design tips for crevice gardens.
Asclepias angustifolia is a truly superb garden plant, that is virtually unknown outside its native range in southern Arizona and adjacent Mexico, where it can be found between 4,000' and 7,000' elevation. Narrow-leaf milkweed forms a tight clump of upright stalks that create a 2' tall x 2' wide garden specimen. The stalks are clothed with amsonia-like foliage, and topped from May through September (NC) with terminal clusters of flowers that emerge as blush pink buds opening white. After one flush of flowers is complete another flush starts, and this continues throughout the spring and summer. Our offering is a seed strain from a Patrick McMillan collection in Santa Cruz County, Arizona. Disclaimer: Monarch butterflies are not shipped with the plants...they will be flying in on their own in summer.
This insecticide spray is designed for use indoors and outdoors and provides 60-day residual control of cockroaches, fleas and ticks in pet bedding, bedbugs and other areas and residual kill of many insects on plants (excluding crops). It features an unscented formula.
Crevice gardens are unusual in Austin, and Coleson's is planted with hardy succulents, cacti, and perennials. In April it was all in flower.
It is hard for me to believe that in little more than a week and a few days I'll be winging off to Europe once again, this time to speak at an international rock garden conference near Prague. A centerpiece of that conference will be visits to a bevy of Czech private gardens, all of which (I suspect) will be composed primarily of crevice rock work. The enthusiasm for crevice gardening has spread far beyond the Czech republic--largely through the efforts of the indefatigable and utterly delightful Zdenek Zvolanek (who goes by Zed Zed in Britain). He created a master work for Wisley that merits its own Blog post, I warrant! Surrounded by wonderful paving, and set near the alpine house complex framing beautifully this marvelous orogeny (I am amused that spell check doesn't recognize this word I've known since I was twelve--mountain building basically). The plantings are a bit sparse--which makes the rock work stand out particularly well: I suspect this will change with time: there are lots of treasures already in the garden! And I suspect more will appear--saxifrages, primulas and drabas look particularly good in such a setting--and there's a room for hundreds more of these in it! But this miniature hybrid of R. keiskei is obviously thriving! I love the almost Japanesque rhythm of the various sierras receding in this picture: mind you the entire garden is perhaps only ten to fifteen feet wide--albeit quite a bit longer than that...it gives the impression of vastness due to the tiny plants contained therein. This brilliant phlox would be gorgeous anywhere, but framed by the rocks and their lichens, it's positively riveting! I have grown Erigeron scopulinus since not long after it was named and introduced a few years later to cultivation by Sonia Lowzow Collins. THIS is the way it should be grown! How annoying that a plant that grows natively a few hundred miles from my home should look so good in ENGLAND, planted no doubt by a Czech! I hope one day I may see this fleabane in the wild (it's quite rare)... This plant game my heart a tug: I met Letitia Aslet in Seattle and spent much of the First Interim International conference with her and Ken--who supervised this section of Wisley for decades. The whole time we were together she wore a woven Greek unisex top that I happened to also have loved and worn (and still have in my closet--albeit a tad tight on my aging torso). I have long grown this precious plant, one of whose parents (Verbascum spinosum) is endemic to high parts of Crete where both my parents were born. To see Letitia's namesake here at Wisley is the floral equivalent of listening to Siegfried's Idyll in Bayreuth. Totally irrelevantly, that's one of the few Wagner compositions I actually like to listen to. I doubt the latter event will occur in this life--but the former has and shall resonate! If you actually understand this gibberish you are part of a very select fraternity indeed! Crevices grow more than just plants! The Amerias are probably a bit too large for Zed Zed's taste--but pretty dramatic! I love this white Erinus alpinus! I love the way the Aethionema echoes the form and color of the daphne below... What better way to show off Phlox 'Sneewitchen'? The rusty rock face behind is perfect! I love the little rosularia in the dip...and how wonderfully the silver of saxifrages contrasts with the grey rock and echoes the lichens! This is pretty heady stuff! A parting shot of the robust Armerias--I like this. But would probably pick some of the vast assortment of tinier ones instead myself... This horrible image was downloaded from Amazon (where you can buy the book)--it was one of my trophies from my recent British trip: I have yet to read my copy--but I have no doubt that it will be vintage Zdenek: utterly unique, quirky and extremely valuable. I am astonished that in all of Prairie Break--with my hundreds of blog postings and probably over 10,000 images--I have only one of Zed Zed (It's at the end of one of my most visited blogs, which you can click on here to see). Few people have inspired me more over the decades: we have had enormous fun in Colorado and at various conferences where we pal around. I can boast of a number of things (and try not to)--but I do believe I may have been one of the first to commission Zdenek to build a garden: he and Joyce Carruthers (his second great love) built the first phase of Denver Botanic Gardens' truly alpine garden on Mt. Goliath at nearly 12,000 20 years ago--helping launch his amazing career as garden builder. I am very much looking forward to meeting #3 (Zdena) in a few weeks. Walking around Zed Zed's exquisite rock work at Wisley brought back a flood of tender memories and has added to my appreciation of him and the great garden he graced with his masterpiece.
Coleson Bruce created Texas-style crevice gardens and a xeriscape in NW Austin by teaming up with a knowledgeable neighbor. Here's my tour.
Between Lerkendal Stadium and The Norwegian University of Science and Technology campus Gløshaugen, NINA, the Norwegian Institute for Natural Research, has had a new office and laboratory building built. In collaboration with the architecture firm Pir II, Agraff has designed the new outdoor areas for the work premises. Building and landscape are strongly linked in […]
If you have a space in your yard that nothing will grow, why not consider putting in a rock garden? Not only will a rock garden cover up an empty eyesore in you
These easy-care perennials and succulents are perfect rock garden plants because they’ll grow in dry, rocky soil.
This take on a rock garden creates the perfect conditions to grow many low-maintenance beauties. Learn how to build a crevice garden, here.
