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Rockery inspiration please!
Sambucus Jan
Posts: 15
I have a small front garden rockery. At the moment it has several large old and overgrown heather bushes on it. These need to be replaced, but I need something that will not trap masses of dead leaves under it/them, since we live under a dozen large deciduous trees (not, ours all belong to neighbours!). Trying to clear up in the autumn is a nightmare, as dead leaves get hopelessly entangled.The soil areas are of course fairly shallow, so it needs to be small shrubs/ herbaceous perennials or similar. Would welcome any suggestions.
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Can you give us some photos Jan? It's always difficult to make suggestions if we can't see the size etc.
As a starting point - some of the little saxifrages would be happy enough - they cope with most things. Arabis is another. I have a dwarf Gaultheria which is happy in shade and has little white flowers like Pieris) followed by berries. Evergreen, trouble free. Might be a bit dry in your site unless you get a decent amount of rainfall. Pulsatillas - (pasqueflowers) would be fine there too. Smaller Euphorbias migth be ok too.
Last edited: 09 May 2017 12:45:40
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Plot is small, with about half a dozen planting spaces about 2' x 2' each. Soil is shallow and rather sandy, so does dry out quite readily, but is also north facing, so doesn't get full sun all day, which mitigates! Really looking for something that has a stem raised up off the ground, so that dead leaves blow around the plants and go away, rather than gathering in plants' dense branches all winter. Sorry, sounds as if I'm being very specific, but maybe that narrows down the choice better? Thanks for reply.
Personally I think you are on a hiding to nothing. If you are surrounded by trees then you are going to get leaves and most plants do start leafing at ground level and work their way up. I can't think of any rockery plants or any other plants (trees and lollipops being exceptions) that have a bare stem that you are looking for.
Thanks Hogweed; I'm afraid you are probably right, I'm looking for the impossible.....can't do anything about the trees, as they are on neighbours' properties', and have TPOs on them! However, heather with hindsight was a pretty bad choice, as the dead leaves get really entangled in the bushes now that they are overgrown. Guess bare plots, or concreting over the rockery area will be the only solutions!
Rockery plants would not be too bad as they have small leaves so the tree leaves would tend to blow off them. If you take a trip to the nearest garden centre you would get a good selection - I'm thinking saxifrage, aubretia, little cistus etc. You could try some and see how you get on with them and the leaves but I think they would be better rather than looking for bare stemmed plants. Rockery plants normally hug the ground tightly so you wouldn't get leaves going under them.