building a rock garden/rockery

we are suffering from a shrunken front lawn (it looks like over the years the flowerbeds have got bigger and the lawn smaller so it needs sorting out. We have a very large number of big rocks we have taken out of the back garden which we would like to use in the front to make a rockery/rock garden.

our plan is to keep the flowerbeds but make them thinner and therefore easier to manage, the put weed sheeting stuff and edging down and stone chippings and make a rockery in the middle.

anyone any suggestions or advice?

we are undecided on the stone chippings. we quite like some that are sort of buff colour but we also like the purpley slate. cost may come into the decision in the end but people's thoughts would be very welcome.

plants for the rockery bit. I love heathers, the fact they come in so many different colours and can be pretty at different times of year seems good to me. the front garden doesn't get sun really - north facing but things seem to grow there pretty happily.

ideas welcome - thanks in advance

 

Heather is purple when it flowers. As far as I know it is, and always will be, just purple. Different shades of purple perhaps, but purple none the less.

Garden centres hold a different opinion. They believe that heather can be any colour. Some of them very vivid. So they paint them. Or I suppose to be more accurate, they dye them, with a non-toxic dye based on food colouring. A dye that, like any other dye, eventually washes off, or grows out.

 

You can get white flowering heathers!

If you're using purple heathers, then, white chippings help to feature them.

 

I stand corrected. Purple or White it is then

 

perhaps it isn't heathers I am thinking of then. I have a load in the front garden wall garden. I know the sort you mean in garden centres which are plainly dyed but the ones I have have varying colours of branchy bits (from browns to greens) and then flowers in shades of pinks, white, purple. I always thought they were heathers. hmm will have to look into what they are then.

thanks

 

so are these not heathers really then?
http://www.heatherplants.co.uk/calluna-vulgaris-heather.asp

I am confused now

 

I guess I stand corrected once again, although the pics show flowers that are mostly in variations of purple, they differ far more than I'd realised they could.

To be fair though, I did grow up on the edge of the moors, where the heather is purple when it flowers, and has foliage that goes through green, brown, sometimes a golden shade, and a hit of red, all depending on how sunny its been and what time of year it is. When you see mile after mile of the same heather, its hard to imagine any other variation.

Ignore my heather advice, its been proven that I know little about it

 

Heathers grow in various shades of purple (pink is a "type" of purple) and white.

Winter flowering heathers can "generally" grow in any soil but summer flowering ones need acidic soil.

This is a VERY broad generalization.

 

thanks Kindredspirit and Clueless1.

lovely to have grown up on the edge of the moors - you were very lucky.

I suppose yes pink is a version of purple. I love the different shades though and I do like the different foliage colours, so much nicer than just plain green.

thanks for your help. we have acidic soil round here so sounds like we might be ok growing heathers on our rockery

 

Even the smallest of Heathers does get quite large eventually and they are not as maintenance free as you might expect. They need cutting back after flowering to keep them in shape and at a reasonable size. I find that a very unpleasant task, the stems are tough and rip my hands to shreds.
If you have large rocks available then a rock garden is a great idea, as long as you build it properly.
Look here for one idea. http://palustris.blogspot.com/2007/10/boulder-alpine-garden.html

 

thanks for the link Palustris.

I had assumed (as a new gardener) that because heathers grow so well in the wild they would be relatively simple to look after. thanks for making me aware of that, will have another think.

we have loads of big rocks averaging 40cm by 25/30cm which have been in various sort of rockery things in the back garden which have certainly been there over 40 years when my parents in law bought the property and going by the neighbours garden, quite possibly since the 1930s when the houses were built. It would be a shame not to use them in some way so fingers crossed our ideas will work. if we plan them properly first.

thanks for your help

 

Palustris - frustratingly I don't appear to be able to see the pictures on your blog. is this something with my settings or is there a problem with them at the moment? I would love to see them and get some ideas.
thanks

 

The reason why heather always looks tip top on the moors is because it is not left to its own devices. It is common practice on moorland to torch it all in a three year rotation. The land managers set fire to a third of the area and burn it to the ground. It is a very controlled fire that never gets hot enough to burn the roots away. The following year they'll do the next third, then the last third, then back to the start at year 4 in the rotation.

The result is that the heather is always full of new growth. The sheep nibble it, I guess naturally pruning it, until it starts to get to chewy, by which time it is ready for to be burnt off again.

There's some controversy about the practice, but I wont go into that.

That's why heather in the wild always looks so good. I guess you won't want to torch your rockery every year though, so I guess sheers and secatuers it is.

 

yeah a pet sheep and triannual (is that the right word) fires might be a bit much for the neighbours.

out of curiosity do heathers and alpines in general mix together in rockeries, well grow alongside each other rather than mix, you know what I mean?

or would I be betterperhaps looking at different plants?

 

Hi Keinnaf, I too am new to rockeries, I started my rockery last year using mostly alpines, though I do have some dwarf conifers too.
My post here shows some of the stages in it's construction.
http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/my-second-garden-t6606.html



I have some different heathers in my garden (though not in the rockery) and don't find them to be too much trouble, just a bit of a hair cut every year. Good luck with yours.