why create a Crevice garden?

[Peter Korn, Sweden]

A really beautiful created rockgarden don´t need any plants. Maybe a few?

A crevices garden don´t have to be vertical thin stones with exactly X mm cracks. As long as it´s stones that are close together it will be a crevice.

[Lesley Cox]

A really beautiful created rockgarden don´t need any plants. Maybe a few?

Which is true of course, but most of us probably want to grow PLANTS, not just appreciate stonework, no matter how beautiful.

[art600]

If I had a garden the size that Kristl and Peter have, I would have an area of crevice and scree.  With my modest garden it has to be a rock garden for plants.

Horses for courses

[Kristl Walek]

Art, yes, the overall sense of the garden is rock-heavy, especially in the early years, BUT over time this really changes, as the plants spread in the crevices. Over the years, I have come to find it thoroughly satisfying.

But what is really different with this garden is the happiness of the plants---there are species I can grow here, and no-where else. And even the easy plants are happier and healthier here. You have to remember that it is quite difficult to grow alpines in this humid, hot summer climate--most rock plants want to (and do) simply melt. In the crevice garden, they want to stay---even if they do not want to in the troughs, the scree, other more traditional rock gardens.....

[Kristl Walek]

And....just a few plants that like my crevice garden....

Dianthus
 Vitaliana primulifolia
 Edraianthus
 Gentiana pumila delphinensis
 Draba
 Campanula raineri
 Aster coloradoensis
 Campanula choruensis
 Gentiana acaulis
 Phlox hoodii

[art600]

Kristl

Thank you for showing the crevice garden in action.  Some stunning plants in a 'natural' setting.

[gote]

My own limited experience is just as Peter, Kristl and Carlo describes.
Many plants are very happy in deep narrow crevices. It might look as a quarry the first years but when the plants mature, the look will improve enormously.
Kristel's fantastic pictures really prove the point.
The dilemma is of course that you cannot grow in crevices for the show bench.
Arthur's point about "meadow" is of course right but it all depends upon what we grow. The alpine habitat is not only rock and scree; it is also meadow and there are many beautiful meadow plants out there.
Göte
 

[Katherine J]

It is beautiful Kristl, thank you for the pictures!

[Ian Y]

I am just catching up with this thread - even though I have been home for three weeks now I have still not caught up with the forum.

My answer to planting nursery grown plants into crevice beds is to wash all the compost off the roots with a jet of water.
I do this with all nursery plants as the compost that works best for the nursery is not the best for our garden conditions. Also you can make sure there are no root pests - apids, vine weavils etc.
Since I started doing this my losses have been minimal  -far less than before I started to wash off the roots.
I don't do it in winter or high summer but I am unlikely to be planting then any way. Any time when the plant is in active growth - even when it is in full flower.
When planting into narrow cracks I wash the roots down with water and then wash the compost in as well this ensures the roots are in good contact and the plants never look back.

[Paddy Tobin]

Ian,

Good show! It obviously is not necessary to have large areas to dedicate to a rock/crevice/scree garden in order to enjoy this method of growing plants. With small stones you have created a planting densely packed with interest.

One must work with what one has - I have access to lots and lots of what I would call field stone, those turned up by the plough, which are generally rounded and do not give the rugged effect of some of the rock gardens shown earlier in this thread but are excellent for building retaining walls for raised beds and within these raised beds it is possible to have small areas of crevice garden with the rock that will suit that kind of construction.

Also, your method of washing the compost from the roots is an excellent idea; works very well. It is also very suitable when one wishes to divide plants like hostas and agapanthus. By washing the roots it is possible to gently tease the plants apart and from one plant make up a drift of the same plant. Two/three years ago I turned three hostas into 130 and now could take up many of them and divide again if I wished.

A quesion for you: do you include any bulbs in your crevice planting? Which do you find most successful. You will have admired Rafa's fabulous mountain photographs of narcissus seemingly growing on rock, well rock with a puddle of soil. Can you recommend some bulbs suitable to this kind of garden?

Finally, after looking at your photographs, I imagine you doing your gardening wearing a helmet like those used by miners with a light on the front but with you it is a camera instead of a light. Any truth in this?

Tongue in cheek, Paddy

 

[Blue-bellied Frog]

When you have an extravagant project, you can buy used machines, and sell them when the job is finished.
I bought a case 1845C in august 2003 (5000$) to place 4 trucks of stone I receive from a deal, 20$ a truck.
I did ask for 5 to 500 lbs stones, but I got 500 to 4000 lbs stones.
This machine was not good for some parts of the job, so I bought a loader John-Deer 2010 (6000$)
in march 2004. I did finish my job last october, after moving 20 trucks of stones.
I will sell the machines this spring (when the 5 feets of snow will melt) and I think I will have my money back. And you use them when you need it, they are always there, without additional costs.

Peter, (and other too) if you want an advice, you should always keep your back straight. force only with your legs and arms, when lifting loads.

I had my back jammed several times, form the age of 15 to 40. Since 1992, the year I bought this house, I did move at least 30 trucks of stones, and maybe 10 of sand, without any problems.

[Peter Korn, Sweden]

I admit, I´m a digaholeic. I really love digging and digging and digging, for weeks and mounths, constructing and moving stones (by hand). I love the challange of making different environments for all kinds of plants from alpines, cacti and almost everything else.That is the only reason why I do it.
I only grow and sell plants that I would like to grow. Maybe not the best way for a nursery but it´s my hobby (and living), not my job.

I don´t want to have a big machine. I had a tractor but I never used it so I sold it. If I had a machine I would only make bigger projects and I would then have more work. It´s good to have something that limits the projects and I don´t destroy the soil with heavy machines.
If anyone wants to use big machines, big stones, small stones, vertical or diagonal crevices..... it´s up to you. I do it my way.

I always try to keep my back straight and if I feel some pain I do some easier work for a few days.

[Katherine J]

Ian,
I never dared to do this with a plant, but I will try. Now I can believe it works.
Thank you.

[Robert Pavlis]

Kristl - in your picture "Crevice_Year 3" you have a 'Yucca' type of plant. I assume it is hardy in your area. What is it?

[Kristl Walek]

The "yucca type" plant is in fact that---the dwarf Yucca harrimaniae, not often seen in gardens and marginal for me here. This particular specimen (I have others) succumbed during a brutal no-snow -45C winter, but would be quite "in range" for you in London.

In terms of what we can grow in Ontario: the native Yucca glauca is the hardiest, then Y. filamentosa (quite common) and then Y. harrimaniae and (perhaps for you) Y. baccata.

I grow quite a gang of them in my sand bed with the oceans of Opuntia.