Before and After: Progression of a Rock Wall Garden

Since we are experiencing a late-season snow storm here at Chickadee Gardens, perhaps another before and after is the ticket (as I tire of snow photos). I give you the rock wall, the top of our driveway before and after, as it has evolved over the past two years. I wrote a post about the creation of the rock wall right after its creation, you can revisit that here. Since it has filled in a little since then, I owe you all an update.

The first official before photo, taken September of 2015 before we owned the house.

The area I am writing about is to the left, beyond the end of the concrete wall. It really was clumps of field grass and weeds with some aggressive oregano and Vinca minor seedlings everywhere. It took some time and effort but I eventually was able to (mostly) eradicate them. The Vinca minor, by the way, came from the neighbor's property to the north where it is in abundance in their woodland area. It travels, don't let anyone tell you differently, at least in my area of the world. It's nasty and roots wherever it touches, even the tiniest bit. It would easily cover this whole area in a year or two suffocating most other perennials and ground-covers.

February of 2016 was fairly mild so I decided to tackle this mess. We did not want to look at it every time we got in and out of our cars, so it became high on my priority list of garden projects. At this stage I had spread about 2 units of compost in multiple locations throughout the property to get a jump start on better soil health. You can see the edge of my efforts here.

Facilities Manager caught me in the act in a most glamorous photo. Here I am adding rocks from the former labyrinth and building a rock garden.

Nearly finished stacking rocks.

Mostly finished. The muddy area on the left was eventually weeded and gravel was added. In this photograph you can just make out the first thing I planted here, an Arctostaphylos 'Sentinel' purchased from Xera Plants fall of 2015. Other plants were waiting in the wings to be tucked in.

Fast forward to summer of 2016. Several Armeria maritima, Lewisia cotyledon (both native to these parts), sedums and another Arctostaphylos - this time A. 'Pacific Mist', a prostrate form to spill down the top of the wall, were planted. In the background I had moved clumps of crocosmia that had been scattered throughout this very long bed (in total, some 75 feet long) and concentrated a few here as a kind of place holder until shrubs and trees filled in over time.

The evergreen shrub at the top of this mound turned out to be a magnolia that had been cut down (not by me) and suckering like crazy. I decided to leave it and attempt to shape it over the years if it lived.

A detail of Dianthus simulans, Arctostaphylos 'Pacific Mist', Sedum reflexum beginning to bloom and Acaena intermis 'Purpurea' that has spread considerably from the tiny start given to me by a garden blogging friend.

Detail of Armeria maritima or sea thrift. It forms an evergreen basal mound of foliage and in late spring sends up these vibrant pink flowers. It is very tough and comes in a white and a light pink-flowered form as well as a purple foliage form.

Lewisia, sempervivum species and in the background, Cotula hispida spilling its gray-green foliage over the rocks.

The whole scene at sunset last year. Sedum toward the bottom of the wall has filled in nicely, helping to mitigate erosion. More gravel has been added along the way as it settles in. The Arctostaphylos 'Sentinel' is nearly in the middle of this photo. It has not grown much, although I know it will soon. To the right of the arcto is a Grevillea x gaudichaudii purchased from Cistus Nursery in 2016. It not only lived through last winter's fury, it has thrived.

It lost most of its leaves after last winter and looked terrible, but I left it in place. Late winter last year it started putting on new growth and eventually it bloomed. Its flowers are pretty amazing.

 Pictured last summer. It has since grown even more.

End of summer 2017. The grevillea can be seen in the upper right.

November 2017. The crocosmia and grevillea are duking it out and we all know who we want to win.

This winter we had a good long stretch of mild weather so I got out there to take care of maintenance where I could. The Arctostaphylos 'Sentinel' was leaning towards the ground and I thought I would have to prune out the lower branches to give it more air circulation. What I discovered is that it just needed to be propped up a bit, so I added considerable gravel around its base and added a rock on the downward side to prop it up. This way I didn't lose half of the plant to pruning. The leaves had been facing towards the southern sun, now they are readjusting to do the same in their newer more upright position. Eventually this shrub will reach 7' tall, so many of these smaller plants surrounding it will likely have to be moved. The crocosmia got a downsizing by me so the grevillea could have ample room to spread, and the magnolia has been shaped a little more to keep it from falling forward.

   This is a south-facing sloped wall with pretty good drainage so I have appropriate plants that happen to appreciate good air circulation. I have been working on opening it up over the last year as plants fill in by removing "temporary" plants as well as pruning. Also included in this garden is a Callistemon 'Woodlander's Hardy Red', a Ceanothus cuneatus 'Blue Sierra', and a Drimys winteri which will all grow considerably over the years with a little luck, especially now that I've removed a lot of crocosmia that was beginning to shade them out.

Most of these plants are evergreen, save for the sedum which sort of dies back - at least the Sedum spurium towards the bottom of the wall seen here does. There are also several plants to the far left which can't really be seen, things I've tucked in while passing by, Zauschneria californica which is deciduous, and also (evergreen) native Eriogonum ovalifolium and Eriogonum compositum (Form 2), buckwheats purchased from work. More on those another day, the buckwheats deserve a post of their own.

 One more time. Before, February 2016.

After, February 2018. I know February is not the most picturesque time of year to be photographing a garden, but it demonstrates to my eyes structure and whether or not my planting choices are effective. I want the garden to look good year-round, so planning for that and gardening with hardy evergreen plants makes all the difference.

That's a wrap for this week at Chickadee Gardens with your rock wall update. Hopefully this snow will not last and we'll be back to our mild winter and early spring. Until next time, thank you so much for reading and commenting and happy gardening!