An Introduction To Rock And Scree Gardens
A rock garden, or rockery, complimented by an area of Scree is a great feature for any garden. It allows you to recreate the world in miniature, enabling the use of interesting plants that form their own exciting mountainous landscape. Create a Scree and rock garden to be proud of!
-
With a rock garden you are attempting to mimic the world in miniature, the rocks representing mountainous areas. The plants used are close to the ground, hummock forming, and creeping. Nothing should stand out or protrude above the ground. They should also be in scale with the rock that is used, such as a mendip hard sandstone.
-
Suitable plants include hardy geranium, cat mint, crassulas, and saxifragas. All of these use cracks and crevises in the rock structure, which should be terraced. This allows rain water to collect where the plants require it, with any excess being quickly lost.
-
Ground conditions should, as a general rule, be well drained with no real moisture content, and rather impoverished. To create this kind of garden on a smaller scale, it could be planted into a butler sink or in a raised bed.
-
Any good rock garden should be complimented by a scree garden. This is a transitional zone between the hard rock, and the surrounding paths or grass. It is composed of very gritty soil, mimicking the valley bottoms of nature where debris collects. Here you can use pink diasica, dwarf rhododendron, Californian poppy, thyme, and sedum, all low growing perennials. The ground consists of highly drained soil based compost covered in a thick mulch of gritty gravel.
