For those who always wanted to create a rockery filled with diminutive plants, here is a primer to get you started. Don’t just dream of a rock garden, start making one
Why Do You Want A Rock Garden?
Erythronium dens-canis ‘Kondo’ makes a good addition to your display.
Answering this question, “Why do I want a Rock Garden?”, closely followed by considering the basic sources you have to begin with, may find you on your way to building this unique feature.
Do you …
- …Already have a garden?
- …Love a rock garden, but don’t have a yard?
- …Wish for a complete rockery?
- …Interested in just a small feature to enjoy?
It isn’t hard to have a rock garden if that has been a dream of yours.
CONSIDER THIS
The amount of land you have to work with is one consideration, and whether rocks are a natural part of the landscape.
The type of soil, its pH and texture, as well as drainage will be important to rock plants.
The kind of rocks available to you (or which you wish to use) rate some thought.
Start Planning
- Write down your answers to the above questions
- List your the ultimate size and requirements, such as budget limitations
- Will you do construction yourself, or hire professional help? Write down costs for those scenarios.
- Now you can start the planning phase
The planning is the fun part, and it will save mistakes and money spent.
Start Your Design
Victorian Obsession
The naturalism of this landscape feature fascinated the Victorians. It was the perfect showcase for their plant collections and artistic display skills.
We aren’t too different from people of that day. Growing plants, making miniature worlds, being creative and having a chance to engage in artistic pastimes still draws us into this form of gardening.
An easy planting with sedums makes a low maintenance front yard feature
Types Of Rock Gardens
- The Classic Rock Garden: built on a rise, it melds seamlessly into the surrounding environment. Often utilizes natural outcroppings of native rock.
- Banks: Rocks preventing erosion become the perfect opportunity for a specialized garden. Usually a simpler planting with easy care, low growing plants is the best use of this opportunity.
- “Walk-About” Bed: a central raised bed with paths cutting through. I saw an example of this at the Denver Botanic Garden.
- Woodland Rock Garden: situated in the trees, this is a shady to partly sunny planted rock garden, which features ferns.
How to Create your own Rock Garden
Start with tutorials for making the rockwork structure of the garden. Then, choose the plants and plan the way you hope they will look within the site.
The Rockwork, The Plants
Rock garden plants in a scree
Rock Garden Plant Tips
Not every low growing plant is ideal for rock garden conditions especially if you have small spaces. Some low growing plants are so vigorous they amount to thugs in a rock garden.
A case in point is the “Snow In Summer”, Cerastium tomentosum, which will grow by leaps and knows no bounds! Vinca minor, or any plant classified as a groundcover will also take over.
Two considerations are
- the pH needs
- the vigor of the plant.
If space is at a premium, don’t plant potentially invasive plant thugs.
Rock Outcropping
Rock outcropping with shade plants or mountain meadow, depending on the amount of light.
THE ROCKS
If you have a natural rock outcropping, please consider using plants to create a garden space that emphasizes its beauty. Research the native plants of your area. This gives a foundation of plant material that is most likely to look lovely, and reward your care with the best possible results.
Most of us must import rocks of some kind to give a naturalistic look (which seems paradoxical). I used limestone rocks that came from the north coast of Ohio. There are also quarried limestone rocks from my part of the state which I could have used, as well. Natural forms from the surface will give a different look to those cut from quarries, but the rules aobut the grain of the rock apply to both.
The placement is important since rocks have a “grain”. This is something like wood grain, with strata lines. These should be lined in such a way that it looks like the rocks were found naturally as they appear in your garden bed.
Complete rockery formations often have very large installations of big, heavy stones. You will likely need professionals for such work.
Advice On Rockwork
In general, rockwork, to be truly natural, can only show the rock on one side, or, at most, on two sides; as scars, cliffs, precipices, etc, are seen in rocky districts.
~ “The Villa Gardener”, by J. C. Loudon
Mountain Mimicry
Low plants and dwarf conifers combine well with rocks for a mountain look.
Stone Retaining Walls Have Nooks For Plants
The crevices in and between rocks provide footholds for plants.
Setting The Rocks
- Try to use one type of rock
- Sink larger rocks into the ground
- Place a few half-sunk stones, of different sizes in groups (like a natural outcropping)
- Combine a rock garden with a water feature, setting rocks around and to one side of the water.
- Line the rocks directionally, so they seem to be rising from within the earth.
Professional gardener shares his passion
Places For Rock Garden Plantings
Rock outcroppings or stones placed to look like mountain crannies are possibilities, but those are not the only opportunities for growing pretty rock garden plants.
Dry stone walls, or a group of hypertufa troughs, are used for this kind of garden. Even small spaces or on flat terrain can look wonderful with this type of feature.
In England, stone troughs used by innovative gardeners for their alpines have become scarce. In the USAÂ such treasures are hardly to be found. Nevertheless, ingenuity percolated and the popularity of hypertufa containers was born.
You can make your own hypertufa troughs and pots with an easy recipe, a few inexpensive ingredients and a little of your time.
Use a mask when working with dry perlite and vermiculite, protect hands with rubber gloves
Combine in ration of 1:1:1
- Portland cement
- perlite (or vermiculite)
- peat moss
Mix well and add 1 part water. Mix until moist and lumpy, holding together. Let rest for 5-10 minutes, then pat it over a lightly oiled mold. Make drainage holes.
Cover with plastic and let cure. After 48 hours or so, brush with wire brush and paint with a buttermilk mixture if you wish to encourage moss.
Expert Crevice Garden Construction
Low Plants | Dwarf Shrubs | Miniature Bulbs |
|---|---|---|
Spring bloomers: Arabis, Moss Phlox, Alyssum | Varieties of Weigela, Spirea, Cotoneaster | Varieties of Daffodils, Tete a Tete, February Gold, Minnow |
Diminutive Annuals: Dahlberg Daisies, Linaria, Nemophilia | Evergreen dwarf: Alberta spruce, Hinoki and Boulevard False Cypress | The minor bulbs: Eranthis,Galanthus,hardy Cyclamen,Snow Crocus |
A Plant Primer For Your Rockery
The Rock Garden Plant Primer: Easy, Small Plants for Containers, Patios, and the Open Garden
Don’t know where to start? This primer guides you through creating your first garden rockery whatever the condition you begin with.
PLANTS FOR SUN
Pinks Are Excellent Rock Garden Plants
Delicate Single Pinks
- Achillea tormentosa
- Arenaria montana
- Armeria maritima
- Arabis
- Dianthus (Pinks)
- Campanula carpatica,C.cochlearifolia, C.portenschlagiana
- Edelweiss
- Alpine poppy
- Iberis sempervirens
- Phlox subulata
- Teucrium chamaedrys
- Penstemons
PLANTS FOR SHADE
- Athyrium fern
- Polypody fern
- Dwarf columbine
- Bergenia
- Astilbe chinensis pumila
- Corydalis lutea
- Tiarella wherryi
Note that many of these plants bloom in the spring.
Small Spring Bulbs
One of the most delightful seasons for a rock garden must be the Spring. Besides the many rock plants which bloom at this time, the conditions are nigh perfect for bulbs. Small bulbs of many kinds are of the right proportions for a rockery. Some are very common, like the “Snow crocus”, while others may be rarities.
Choosing Diminutive Plants
Have you decided which type of rock garden to make? Here are some suggested plants to bring it to life.
TREES FOR A ROCKERY
- Alpine fir
- Acer palmatum (Japanese Maples)
- Amelanchier alnifolia (Juneberry)
- Dwarf pines
- Ornamental Cherry or Crabapples
SMALL SHRUBS, WOODLAND & ACID SOIL
- Heathers
- Arctostaphylos uva-ursi
- Dwarf Azaleas
SMALL SHRUBS FOR AVERAGE, NEUTRAL SOILS
- Dwarf Chamaecyparis, ie. ‘Golden Pin Cushion’
- Dwarf Cotoneaster, ie.’Tom Thumb’
- Dwarf Junipers, ie. J. squamata
- Dwarf Weigela, ie. ‘Minuet’
From the Owner of Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery
Rock Garden Plants: A Color Encyclopedia
It won’t take long before you hear of the famous Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery. The owner, with horticulturist Fritz Kummert, has created a resource for the rock garden enthusiast based upon his knowledge. This book is a must.
In Your Yard
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I HAVE A GARDEN, BUT ONLY WISH FOR A SMALL ROCK GARDEN
This is the easiest situation of all, because you have all the components you need. The biggest challenge? Helping it to look like a natural part of the landscape.
My First Rockery
I had a small rise in my front yard in a home I lived in long ago. I built my first rock garden there.
I made irregular terraces by digging rocks into the side of the rise. Placing a small shrub and dwarf ornamental tree on the upper right created a backdrop and enclosure. By filling with miniature spring blooming bulbs, creeping plants, it became a suitable rock garden -though only six by ten feet in size.
It was a front yard feature that gave my neighbors and passers by much pleasure, because they often commented on it!
Rocks Around a Pond
My second time building such a garden evolved around a small garden pond. I view it from the windows in my house.
This feature is surrounded by a dogwood, dwarf Japanese maple and a Hinoki cypress. The rocky part of the garden is screened from the rather flat, wide-open landscape of my yard. That open quality, in itself, was a personal challenge. I didn’t want it to look like something just plunked down into the yard from outer space. The small trees and some shrubs at the back provided a sense of enclosure.
The key for a successful integration of a rockery into an existing garden is to create its own “room”. You might have similar conditions to me, or you may not, but if you can isolate it into its own place, the feeling of a mountain environment is much more plausible.
PROBLEM: I DON’T HAVE A YARD
Solution: The feeling of a garden could be attained with a trough garden. You can make your own trough with a material called hypertufa. Once you have the container, it can be filled with gravel, rocks, and rock plants, making a small, but satisfactory rock garden feature for your balcony or patio.
Look for ways to overcome potential obstacles to your idea of the perfect garden, it is surprising how many solutions there are to landscaping problems. Many innovative and original garden designs have resulted from challenges such as this. Even the whole concept of the rockeries might be seen as a solution to the Victorian desire to bring a bit of the mountains into the garden.
Create An Alpine Trough
Creating and Planting Garden Troughs
Now in paperback, the addictive hobby of making an alpine trough combines these decorative containers with the fun and challenge of making a miniature world. Learn how to make a hypertufa trough!
Delving Into the History
“The primary stimulus for the development of rock work was the interest in and availability of specialized plants and shrubs that required special soil and climatic conditions.”
“Alpine plants became popular both in England and America during the Victorian period and a rock garden provided an ideal setting for them”
.~Therese O’Malley, Keywords in American Landscape Design,
A Complete Rockery
The most ambitious plan would be to have a complete rock garden along the lines of the Victorian plans.
Perhaps you are already familiar with the features of this type of garden, but for those who haven’t seen such a garden, let’s start with a bit of history.
EARLY ROCK GARDENS
Some of the earliest rock gardens were made by the Chinese, such as the the Liu Yuan garden.
The Japanese created their Zen garden, in which rock was a key element. However, for most of us, it is the European fascination which began closer to the 18th century that forms our idea of what a rock garden should look like.
The Victorians, in their age of exploration and collection, loved to create “grottoes” and some of their rock gardens were more “grotesqueries” than anything we would now admire.
The ideas of rock gardens divided into three main categories:
- replicating a natural landscape in miniature, such as a mini-Matterhorn;
- making a place for alpine plants, such as a scree garden; or simply a natural rock outcropping.
- The third type, the alpine garden, was focused on the beauty of the alpine plants, which sometimes require very specific growing conditions. It was a specialists garden, and needed something of an expert construction and care of the plants.
John Loudon’s Design Circa 1838
Classic Book by J C Loudon
It is surprising what some of the old classic garden books can offer. They don’t have bright illustrations, but make up for it with real how-to and sound opinions on creating a beautiful garden.
Loads of Design Ideas
Rock On!
- Alpine Garden Society
Alpine Garden Society provides information on plants and rock gardens.
