Rock gardens????

Does anyone have one?
How about a dry creek bed?
I'm looking for some ideas....please share pics and plant ideas

Thanks

Heh. This is my "soil" at my house. I guess all my gardens are rock gardens.

oh gracious Hart that must give you some serious arm muscles!

I tried a rock garden but it actually dried out too much and the plants didn't survive. I'm sort of trying again in a round about way, as we've just completed the rock wall around our pond and I've bought sedums and the like to plant in there. I'm going to scavenge the compost pile before planting them though. I'm hoping for better success than before,

You might say I'm playing with the concept. I have this south facing bed which encloses a brick chimney. Here I put several sedums and some hens and chicks. the sedum came from a sedum hardy blend seed mix a couple yrs ago. So they are happy but even hens and chicks shows drought stress by gettting very tight. I just decided to take out all my graveyard moss/ stringy stonecrop that runs along the upright-paver edge for about 20 feet, (try to anyway) and fill the edge with a mix of better sedums and more hens and chicks. That coers the unpretty edge in front of a bed of daylilies (which are suffering from the heat and dry right now)

Then I have an area with tree and shrub roots, where everything struggles. I have put two taller sedums there and some of these creeping ones.
So I don't have rock garden species per se but there's a lot of variety possible with sedums and they are so tough

Jen, I would love to put a rock garden together. I keep thinking that when we use the big rocks for the pond I will be able to do something along those lines. I have some sedums/semps ferns and a few other things planted in the cracks and crevices of the walls but not what I would call a real rock garden. I hear you are looking for rocks? You are very welcome to come down here for a day and gather up some of our local brown stone. Maybe a trip to one of our local creeks for some river rock.
Sally, That area is turning into a very pretty garden.

I could def make a trip down there one day, thanks Holly!

Good we will set up a date. Ric came down with an inner ear virus and can barely walk right now but he should be better in a week or so. You should see him staggering around the house. We might want him for some of the larger rocks or if you come on a Friday we might get Josh to take us out to the river for some from there. You know I was just thinking my Dad has a whole pile of rocks at the back of his yard he wants to get rid of. There use to be a stone wall at the edge of his patio. So there is a lot to chose from at our house.

Let's set up a time for sometime next week, this week we're making a trip to Hershey.

I'll D-mail you next week sounds good. Bet I could find a few plants to go with those rocks. LOL

This message was edited Jun 15, 2010 3:05 PM

^_^

OOOhhh, a rock party. Have fun!

Oh, I should have shown you my elementary drawing.....sad I know, but don't want to pay for photoshop or some other program to make it pretty, so just used 'paint'

Jen, check out Photoshop Elements. It has a lot of the same features as Photoshop at a fraction of the cost.

BTW, Jen, a couple of good sources of rock garden info and seeds:
http://www.nargs.org/

and plants
http://www.highcountrygardens.com/ (having a big sale through 6/23!)

Thanks Hart, but I can't spend any $ on something like that. I won't use it enough to justify the $.

Thanks for the info.

If you watch for rebates at places like frys.com, you should be able to get it pretty cheap. And if you take photos, you'll use it for a lot more than doing plans.

I only paid $20 for mine with sale price and rebates. That was several years ago but you should still be able to get it much cheaper than retail price.

Thanks

I paid $30 for my copy a year or so ago got it for card making stuff. I've used it for that, picture editing and now garden planning thanks to the smart ladies on here!

Jen, I've been looking at a couple of different ones, Elements was one, and Corel Paint Shop was another, if you get it online be sure of the source, a friend from DG got burned with a pirate of Photo Shop a while back. Diane is right, with specials you should be able to get something for >$30.00. Ric

Holly, I have found the newer Corel software to be really user unfriendly. I used to have Paint Shop Pro and it was nice but not nearly (make that NEARLY) as easy to use as PE although it did have some graphics applications including animation that PE didn't have so I used it fairly often. But the new version doesn't seem to be nearly as heavy on pure graphics applications and aimed more at working with photos.

When I got this computer and my older graphics software didn't work any more I got Corel's Painter Essentials and Media One. I'm very disappointed in both of them. Media One had problems from the start and numerous emails to their tech support didn't solve them. Painter Essentials is so darned complicated I just don't have the patience to figure it out. I so wish I had gotten PE instead.

You might want to check and see if they don't have free trial versions you can download before making a decision.

Sally---

I am a bit late on thid Thread......just decided to venture out and see what else there is....

Tsk...tsk......Glad to hear you ALSO have a "YUK" bed!!!!!!

G.

What shrubs come to mind for a rock garden???

Here's a few I found after spending time searching the web
Cytisus
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/57588/
Daphne
Genista
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1718/

Of course there's a bunch of conifers but any others?

Dwarf hinoki, azaleas, boxwood, Euonymus, pieris, barberry, weeping cherry, and of course JMs, and all those dwarf conifers just waiting to be displayed. Cityline has some great dwarf hydrangeas. Many Alpines and wild flowers can be adapted to rock gardens. Some annuals show quite well and reseed, like alyssum and bachelor buttons.You should have a ball Jen, after all you live in the garden state.Ric

Hey Jen thought I would post a pic of my rock pile. Doesn't look too bad for a rock pile. LOL Holly

LOVE IT!!!

Right now is a good time for a photo op as the perilla is just the right height. In another month it will look a lot different. I also planted 3 castor beans among the rocks too small to show yet but I'm hoping they will look good as they come up. I weeded all around the pile and hope to mulch around it soon. I was a great success at Jul's party the kids had a great time climbing on them. I did look thru my pics to see if I had any good rock garden pics from some of the gardens we visited but I couldn't find any.

Longwood has some awesome rock gardens on the hill to the bell tower. Ric

I remember the top of that being very shady, talk about tree roots, and well drained but shaded. We should all go RIGHT NOW and see what they grow there. Sounds very Yuk Bed ish
Except it would be so hot walking over there. I'd be really looking at that water....

Let's go!!!! oh wait can we wait till it falls below 90 with 90% humidity?????