Choose Rock Garden Plants
If you are tired of watering, mowing and fertilizing an area then to have a rock garden would be the perfect solution. Here are the tips on how you can properly prepare for your rock garden. In general, rock gardens are well-drained gardens that have the similarities of the alpine plant communities in the mountains. It looks nice and is not that complicated to build. Truly, it is a different look for any garden. In other words, if you like to be different then this is it for you.
The scattered rocks mimic the Rocky Mountains environment and help in drainage function. Although you might want to use true alpine plants for your rock garden, most of them are not suitable for dry and extreme hot weather. However, you still can use plants that can adapt to your climate to create the same effect towards your rock garden. Here are the tips on how to choose the plants.
You will need:
- Yarrow (achillea) plants
- Spurge plants
- Edelweiss plants
- New Zealand flax
- Other suitable plants
Steps:
- There are thousands of possibilities of choosing the suitable plants for your rock garden since lower growing plants tend to blend nicely.
- Provide your plants with a good draining soil and select the plants that will contrast with size, shape, texture and color of the rocks in your rock garden.
- You can use soft and mounding bright green plants to contrast with dark and hard-edged rocks.
- Yarrow (Achilliea) which is a feathery plant will also look great.
- Rounded stone will look stunning against sharper foliage plants like grasses or spurge which is a broad-leafed plant.
- You can substitute The Edelweiss for true alpine plants or use bluebells, soapwort, alpine poppies or rockroses for characteristic flowers to plant on your rock garden.
- Plants with deep root, low-growing plants with bright and cheerful flowering habits will do well in your rock garden.
- You can create your own effects with similar looking plants from your local choices.
- Clump them and repeat varieties around the garden to make the look flow and to avoid using one of each plant.
- You still can get the nice textural effects by working in some grass or grass-like-plants even though they are not alpine plants.
- You can try dwarf New Zealand Flax, stipa grass or one of the colorful-leafed curly heads of carix grass.
A garden is a beautiful thing to have outside one\’s home. Not only is it beautiful, it is also a facility or something that many people get to have, depending on where they stay. So, when we have a garden we will do all we can to keep it well and safe. Most of us like to take it one step further by beautifying our garden. We like to plant beautiful flowers and plants that will enhance and beautify the look of our garden.
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Additional Reading:
Rock Garden Plants: A Color Encyclopedia
The Rock Garden Plant Primer: Easy, Small Plants for Containers, Patios, and the Open Garden
