Crevice Gardening ......in defence of rock.....

[TheOnionMan]

The middle part of the ledges was totally buried when I started gardening. I hit a submerged ledge with a pickaxe.  When this happens, your shoulder and elbow immediately tells you you've hit ledge.  I decided to explore and uncovered the buried ledges. They go straight down for a few feet and then you find that the water etc carved the ledge underneath at an angle.  Following that angle (roughly 45 degrees if I remember correctly) for the length of the tool plus arm, you have about 8' depth of soil which was clay and rock and was all dug out and replaced.

Anne, your garden and rock outcroppings are so natural looking and scenic, and beautifully planted.  Your story about excavating and uncovering buried ledge has me totally stoked!  I wasn't joking when I said most of my property has stone and ledge just a few inches to a foot below the surface.  Years ago when I had a backhoe come in to dig a 200' long drainage ditch, they hit lots of ledge, and I had them put some of the largest chunks over to one corner of my property, the intent being to build a rock garden there one day.  In the same location, there are areas of exposed ledge, and I have always wanted to excavate the area to reveal the ledge.

Now please don't laugh, but I have uploaded a photo taken almost 6 years ago from my deck (which was still under construction at the time), looking towards the part of the yard I describe, with some fairly huge ledge chunks are placed.  I added an arrow on the photo to show the small area of outcrop.  As soon as the spring thaw arrives, I need to start digging.

[cohan]

anne, like everyone else, i find your natural stone outcrops amazing! no doubt the implacable stone drives you 'wacky' at times, but i'd happily have that problem

[astragalus]

Hi Mark,  I'm so not laughing!  It all sounds perfectly normal to me.  It took me almost five years to dig out the middle ledges and I dumped the clay and debris over the front cliff.  I can now drive the tractor on to what used to be empty air.  I hit the ledge when I wanted to put two or three steps down to a lower level.  Famous last words .."This looks like ledge ...let's just see where this goes".  I'm not sure if it was gardening or mining, but it gave me three new levels. The soil was a sticky, heavy  clay with lots of rock.  All the rock was saved and the clay dumped.  I'm not exactly weak but it was difficult to lift a full shovel of the clay when it was wet.  Then I learned that the time to dig was when it was frozen.  All the water became ice crystals and you could cut it with a hatchet like turves of peat.  Big frozen slabs would be cut and thrown into the tractor wagon and dumped. All I had to do was wait for the ground to be free of snow.  Unfortunately I spent a couple of years digging the hard way before this was discovered.
Your slabs of ledge look beautiful.  Do you have a bobcat to move it?  What kind of rock is it? Sounds like a wonderful project and I hope you will take pictures as you go along.

[Jiri Papousek]

I am not so lucky to have any natural rock here, but plenty of pebbles (so I carry all stones with my sons or alone on a small trailer). It should carry 500 kg, but I am quite sure it had sometimes almost double weight, as I couldn't resists to take all nice stones available. I have also layer of clay below, very good source of water in my dry environment, for plants rooting through crevice constructed above. I can confirmed that for example some daphnes they first have very very slow development, but later on they grow suddenly much faster. I don't have many pictures from this new garden and too many plants are still in pots, suffering from my poor treatment. I can confirm so far success in crevices with daphne cneorum (various forms), arbuscula, circassica, juliae, x hendersonii, x schlyteri, x sundermannii, x rollsdorfii, x susannae.
One picture shows troughs, better say pieces of troughs, raised on the wall to frame the artificial north slope to get some cooler positions. I am also trying to consider comfort for observing plants. Pieces of troughs are cheaper and also easier to transport. Later on all spaces will be covered by plants or stones.

[Lesley Cox]

Lovely pictures Jiri, especially the Haberlea. I'm interested to see how you will manage thr transition from one level to the next in the side troughs, that appear to be broken, but as there are so many, I expect you made them like this deliberately?

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Stunning pictures of even more stunning gardens Anne and Jiri !! 
Rock gardening in the true sense of the word !! 
I hope we'll see many more pictures as the new season comes round !

[Jiri Papousek]

Lovely pictures Jiri, especially the Haberlea. I'm interested to see how you will manage thr transition from one level to the next in the side troughs, that appear to be broken, but as there are so many, I expect you made them like this deliberately?

Lesley,
here is some development I managed to finish before winter. Very often not all 4 sides of trough are needed, as you can cover missing part with crevices. Or if trough is broken in 2 complete pieces, you can just put them together and don't need to drill drainage hole. I am saving money as often I pay just 50% or less. Also weight is much smaller. I love to went through antiques here and looking for suitable troughs. In a spring I will continue and add some better pictures.

[astragalus]

Jiri, your pictures are stunning.  I'm very interested in your last pictures showing the construction in progress.  Your crevice garden seems to slope downwards completely.  What will be the effect on it of heavy rains?  Or is the slope not that steep?  It's always difficult to see from pictures.  I'm attaching a picture of the site of my crevice gardens.  The first garden would be almost at the top where there is a trough on the left.  That sits on the front wall.  The crevice gardens here are walled on all four sides.  To the left by steeply sloping rock of the cliff, to the right by the small side walls of each terrace next to stone steps winding up to the top.  The long sides are the retaining walls. I ran the crevices the long way because it mimics the natural crevices of the cliff. Because there is quite a drop from the back wall to the front wall, I made the building process easier by stepping down the crevice walls in only one place with my work path inbetween.  That way both the front and back crevices are level, and everything can be reached with a little stretching.  Above the topmost wall which you can't see in the picture is the back end of the cliff with huge crevices.  That will be next year's project hopefully.  I hope the picture shows everything better than my words even though you can't see the start of the first crevice garden which is now finished.

[TheOnionMan]

Stunning rock work!

[astragalus]

Thanks, Mark. I think this picture would have been taken the end of April because Lewisia tweedyi is in bloom.  It's a fairly early time in the rock garden unless you love things like Oxytropis multiceps etc

[TheOnionMan]

Thanks, Mark. I think this picture would have been taken the end of April because Lewisia tweedyi is in bloom.  It's a fairly early time in the rock garden unless you love things like Oxytropis multiceps etc

Well, I spotted the "tweedyi" right away.  When I lived in the Seattle Washington area, it was a mere 2 hour drive to get up into the dry Wenatchee Mts (a spur off the Cascades), where there was lots of L. tweedyi, but in some strong yellow and peachy-yellow shades (the guys at Grand Ridge Nursery found forms that were yellow strongly tinged red).  From there we'd move along to another area, and my wife and I would go "rediviva" spotting, along with Fritillaria pudica, Sisyrinchium douglasii, eriogonums and penstemons... all the good stuff, and astragali too, but the most memorable plant is Trifolium macrocephalum; dwarf but with enormous heads in orange shades rather than the more typical pink, but nearly ungrowable as I've tried it. 
http://plants.usda.gov/java/largeImage?imageID=trma3_003_ahp.tif
...and a pink form:
http://www.cwnp.org/photopgs/tdoc/trmacrocephalum.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40650891@N02/4106270426/

...excellent photo essay here:
http://wolves.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/big-head-clover-trifolium-macrocephalum/

[astragalus]

Loved the Trifolium pictures, Mark.  The pink form is really two-toned which is lovely. My favorite is probably Trifolium owyheense - no picture, it got eaten by a critter.  Isn't it amazing how they always find the best? How lucky to have seen Lewisia tweedyi in the wild. It seems easier here than L. cotyledon. Attaching a picture of a pink form of L.tweedyi which seems to be reliable here.  Maybe you have seen ones redder or pinker than this in the wild?

[Lesley Cox]

That's a stunning clover Mark. Ungrowable? I doubt if any NZ farmer would believe you? Me neither, looking at the state of my garden and driveway.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

An amazing "rock" garden you have Anne !!   
Simply stunning !!

[Jiri Papousek]

I'm very interested in your last pictures showing the construction in progress.

Anne, I see we have the same dreams 
I have added few more pictures. Like you, I have in mind, that I have to be able to access plants without acrobatic positions on rocks in a future also. Each path is framed with first line of stones. They have to be carefully fixed in the soil, as they will support the others.It is better if the angle is little bit more then 90 degrees, going slightly backwards, so stone pressure the soil behind. After fixing first line, I add another one. I always put or hammer in crevice smaller stones having roughly the same thickness as crevice. If it is not solid enough I hammer there with rubber beater small stone slabs.In part next to troughs, I was able in 2 meters length to get upwards 1.5 meter.
Once all stones are fixed by smaller ones together and crevices filled with sand or soil, it is all very solid, similar effect like if you put together thin ropes or wires. You are right that in extreme positions sand can be washed away. I learned from ZZ to fill crevices there with clay. Other option could be piece of peat block used in Scandinavia or Scotland.
You have beautiful stones in walls , have you thought to change it in crevices too?