Rock GardensRockeries, Cliff Gardens and ScreesRock gardens can be simply a display garden for those fabulous rocks and driftwood that seem to leap into the back of the car whenever you stop at a beach, or more importantly, a specially tailored growing area for many alpine and rockery plants.
I’ve known those that started with a little bed just for a few Hens and Chicks, and ended up with their whole garden filled with crevice gardens, rock walls planted with choice alpine plants and scree beds for those exceptionally finicky cliff dwelling plants. Be warned, you too could fall victim to the rock garden obsession!
You can join a club for alpine plant fanciers and buy many rock garden plants including hardy cacti such as Opuntia with their brightly coloured tissue paper blooms protected by barbs and spines from mail order suppliers, or better yet, grow your own from seed. Propagating alpine plants and succulent plants from seed is a long term prospect – sometimes taking several years before you see the flowers, but you can end up with a completely new form or variety from seed.
Not all your results will be so successful, but at least you will get many plants to swap, sell or plant in some of the amazingly creative succulent crafts. Finding Rock Garden PlantsGreat plants to look for in alpine plant or seed specialty nurseries are those that are hardy in your climate zone, easy to care for, and yet still produce a long season of bloom or other interest.
Plant sales put on by garden clubs in larger centers such as those at Vancouver British Columbias vanDusen Gardens several times a year give you a huge selection of choice plants, including some extremely rare plants and are well worth the trip to attend. See more places to buy plants online with the directory on this page. In many places it's illegal (and unethical) to dig up plants in the wild, so please only take the plants with you on your camera.
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Xeriscaping - Landscaping with Less Water
Gardening with a Light Hand on the Land
The focus is on landscaping with easy care drought tolerant plants like Sedum, Sempervivum and thyme and using natural materials to build rock retaining walls and it's easy to see why.
It used to be that once in a while these kinds of plants would come to the fore, and successfully maneuver dry summers, but now it's obvious that these are the most suited to what is becoming the norm.
Interested in learning how to build a patio? See this page for patio design ideas.
Seeing how beautiful these unique landscapes are and how well they perform in challenging conditions will encourage others to find unique plants to use in their own xeric garden.
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