After our trip up to Iowa to have Thanksgiving with Jim’s brother, I buckled down to work on Sunday and made some real progress in the stroll garden. Today was a very light massage day, and I had gotten the rubble fill to a point where it was really time to finish the ridge.
Jim came out and helped me move the really big rocks, and then screened dirt from our big dirt pile to fill in the corners. So, without further ado: the rock garden/scree slope sans plants and sans scree. But ready for same!
This is how the ridge line looks from the corner by the house. The retaining wall for the Zen rock/gravel garden will curve away from the ridge about two thirds of the way along the ridge, moving out from the tree. On the top of the ridge I am planning to plant some rug junpiers to sort of cascade over it in both directions.
Now, if you walk along the path, turn around and look back, this is how the slope looks on the back side of the ridge.
Imagine that planted with pretty creeping rock garden plants like dwarf dianthus, sedums, etc. The whole slope will be mulched with a decorative gravel which will hold the dirt in place. The gravel will cascade down the whole garden starting at the base of the ridge and going down into the path pavers.
Looks good, huh? Now all I need is grant money for the plants.
It certainly does look inviting, if I were a sedum I’d want to jump right in!
Can you swap cuttings or small plants with neighbours to get some first inhabitants, or are your neighbours not really big gardeners?
Wow, you have done some major work! It looks great already without the plants.
Can’t you just SEE it with low rock gardens creeping and draping themselves around? I can hardly wait!
And I do have some stuff I can transplant in there, and some friends that have promised me some plants. But I imagine I am still going to end up spending money, especially when we start developing the rest of the beds in the stroll garden.
And we have gravel to buy, both for the “scree” of the rock garden and for the raked gravel in the Japanese rock garden.
[...] Garden – November 20 Update and Stroll Garden – November 28 Update (healingmagichands at The Havens): Follow the construction of a lovely stone path and scree slopes [...]