Content
- Rock garden on the slope - planning, creating, cultivating
- Hillside is ideal for rock garden
- Optimal: the combination of stone and water
- Set stones correctly
- Planting place for wet-sensitive plants
- Planting place for heat-sensitive plants
- Planting place for upholstery plants
- Caution: moisture!
- Tips
A slope is ideal for a rock garden
Rock garden on the slope - planning, creating, cultivating
Of course, a rock garden can also be designed on a flat surface. Much more interesting - and true to nature - is the planting of a slope or embankment. If you do not have one in your garden, you can artificially pile it up and create it in many ways as a rock garden. Large embankments (for example, replace the fence or the hedge and can be used wonderfully to hide excavation, for example, from the house) can be beautifully planted with large-scale upholstery plants such as goose cress, Polsterphlox and Steinkraut.
Previous article The most beautiful ground cover for the rock gardenHillside is ideal for rock garden
Many rock garden plants come from the mountains. There it is not flat and flat, but downhill and rocky by nature. Ergo you create ideal living conditions for your mountain plants, if you rebuild the natural conditions. However, not every slope is suitable for the design as a rock garden, because most species require a sunny, south-facing location. Some plants also feel comfortable in a partially shaded spot, but these should be selected accordingly.
Optimal: the combination of stone and water
A hillside location is ideal to integrate a small stream in the rock garden. This can even be equipped with mini-waterfalls and finally open in a pond. For a creek, you need pumps that either have a mains connection (a power connection must be made) or a solar module. However, the latter are not suitable if a strong waterfall is to be installed. To seal the water surfaces is suitable special pond liner, which, in order to be protected from damage by the stones, is covered with a nonwoven layer.
Set stones correctly
When setting and planting a hillside with stones special care must be taken. First, such a structure creates different micro-climates, which the skilful gardener, however, knows how to use for himself. In this way plants with different needs can be planted in one and the same rock garden.
Planting place for wet-sensitive plants
Some plants, for example, are very sensitive to moisture and should be protected from rain. For this you can let a stone over a vertical column a few inches forward. The resulting roof protects the plant from direct rain.
Planting place for heat-sensitive plants
On the other hand, a stone projecting laterally to the south protects heat-sensitive plants such as spring stonefish from too strong a midday sun.
Planting place for upholstery plants
Silverwort, globe flower and other carpet-forming upholstery plants thrive particularly well on flat stones or a correspondingly shaped, flat slope over which they can spread unhindered.
Caution: moisture!
Also, the water supply is very different depending on the placement of the stones on a slope. When planting, remember that steeply sloping stones guide more water to the roots than flat lying plants - and therefore drought-loving plants should not necessarily be placed directly below one. Also, even within a rock crevice very different humidity prevail: while it is dry at the top, it becomes increasingly moist towards the bottom.
Tips
It is best to start planting already while laying the stone chunks: the subsequent insertion of the sensitive root ball is very time-consuming. This is especially true for woody plants.