Rock Gardens, a great Zen feature to your yard.

I have always been surprised that more people do not have rock gardens as a component of their landscaped yards in Kentucky.  Rock gardens, particularly if using some of the native rock, blends hard permanent, rugged and solid features complimented with delicate, often times, colorful flowers.  Furthermore, they are actually pretty simple to make.  One of the very best attributes of developing a rock garden is that they are very low maintenance and can be used to deal with sometimes difficult and challenging conditions, like a steep slope, in the yard.  When developing a good rock garden, you may want to work with a landscape designer or architect to help you design it so that it becomes a focal point in the landscape and can be a unifying garden in the landscape.  The key to developing the rock garden is to have a good foundation, which means digging dirt.  On a natural slope you should dig down about a foot and if using a raised bed you should dig down about three feet.  Remove the dirt because you are now going to put in the drainage layer which can consist of old broken clay pots, unattractive rocks, old pieces of brick or concrete, or other inert materials. Pack this material in to a height of about half of the depth of the dirt taken out.  Now add coarse sand over the top to about 3 to 4" from the surface.  Now, the final step is important because you will want to put the growing layer on top with a mixture of 1/3 topsoil (no clay), 1/3 humus (peat can do here as well), and 1/3 pea gravel.  You can retain some of the pea gravel for placement between plants if your design calls for it.  Now plant your rocks, yes plant your rocks!  You can use rocks of different types, substrates, and sizes to create a naturalistic looking effect.  If you are using large boulder sized rocks place them about a third of the way into the soil mixture.  One of the best things about selecting rocks is you can get colorful rocks, round rocks, flat rocks, and other rocks with character that can help and you can even get creative and have enough flat rocks to create a space for sitting and lounging, or one with a large cavity that would hold water for birds.  Your imagination and creativity are the only things limiting what you can do. Before the final step of putting in the plant material, let the garden settle for a week or so.  Water it, let the rocks settle, and fill in areas with the soil mixture where there has been subsidence. Once the flowers have been planted and established, the only maintenance is to pull weeds, which when young will come out easily from this soil mixture.  The final step, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.

Some excellent native plants for rock gardens

Scutellaria nervosa

Scutellaria saxitalis

Viola pedata

Viola walterii

Silene carolinanum

Phlox pilosa

Phlox amoena

Phlox bifida

Draba ramosissima

Talinum calcaricum (or teretifolium if sandstone)

Blephilia hirsutus

Sedum nevii

Sedum glaucophyllum

Sedum pulchellum

Antennaria spp. (pussytoes)

Sisyrinchium albidum

Sisyrinchium angustifolia

Hypoxis hirsutus

Allium cernuum

Lespedeza repens

Lespedeza procumbens

Liatris squarrosa

Manfreda virginica

Opuntia humifusa

Solidago nemoralis