Rock Garden: Low Maintenance Gardening (Part 2)

The rock garden, part two of Low Maintenance Gardening is another phase of our dry creek bed project.

By the way, before we get to the nitty gritty, don’t forget to subscribe :).

I very briefly talked about the sustainability of tearing out the grass and replacing it with a dry creek bed in Part 1.  Building a rock garden continues with our goal to reduce maintenance and increase sustainability in our yard. The plantings are all drought tolerant and don’t require added watering to keep them thriving. A rock garden is a great way to put water conserving into practice!

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Once we had the dry creek bed in place, the corner of our garden where the fences intersect needed some interest. I didn’t want to fill in that corner with cedar or evergreens as I’m not too fond of them. Instead, we built a rock garden to complement the back corner of our tiny back yard.

To get a sense of the area we had to work with, here’s an overhead shot of the corner of the yard where we built our rock garden.

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Build Back Board

To start construction, we first built backer boards to be placed against the fencing to contain the soil to the height we wanted to raise the rock garden.  Hubs decided to build it in one piece in the garage and then move it into the backyard as one unit.  He used galvanized metal strapping and corner braces to hold it all together (in addition to glue).

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Hubs buried the backer board below the fence line and drove some wooden stakes in front of it to keep it secure, making sure it was level.  He didn’t screw it into the fence itself because it backed onto two of our neighbours’ backyards. It needed to be independent in case they ever decided to repair or replace any of the fencing.

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Stack Boulders

We dry stacked boulders in a semi-circular pattern spanning from one corner of the backer board to the other (you can see the shape on the overview of our plan below).

Landscape Plan

Add Soil

Then we stacked on the second row of boulders. We recessed this second row further into the rock garden than we placed the first row by adding soil underneath to support it along the back edges. We wedged the boulders together like a jigsaw puzzle, however we didn’t use any glue. We weren’t too fussy with the esthetics of stacking the stones because we wanted it to look rustic and time worn.  We filled in the entire space with soil (keeping below the level of the backer board).

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In between the cracks in the rocks, we packed in more dirt so we could plant some succulents.

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Ready for Plants

We planted a miniature Ginko tree and the rest of the plantings went in (all low maintenance and drought resistant plants).  Surprisingly, the Ginko tree is drought tolerant after the first three years too!

The view of our neighbours pool was pretty distracting from the angle shown below (you’ll see how we remedied that at the end).

As you can see, we took advantage of filling every nook and cranny between the rocks.

Some plants spread too much and crowded out the others. The white billowy culprit you see below is ‘Snow in Summer’. It looks beautiful spilling over the edge, but only in moderation.

Each spring I have to pull most of it out to scale it back so it doesn’t smother the other plants.

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Over the years, I’ve experimented with switching up the plants and also the ‘decor’ in and around the rock garden. One year I added a sitting frog on a concrete base to give a bit of height interest. You can also see the chair planter nestled over the fern beside the rock garden (see creative planter ideas).

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To help keep the ‘Snow in Summer’ at bay, I introduced these creepers. They also spill over the edges to soften the hard rock.

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Once the rock garden was done, we turned our attention to landscaping a dry creek bed (Part 1 of the low maintenance garden series):

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Rock garden complete; now onto the dry creek bed!

To recap, here’s the before and after of the dry creek and rock garden projects.

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The south east corner of our backyard was totally transformed from a lonely patch of grass to this lush green space.

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More Garden Ideas

The dry creek bed and rock garden have really added a wow factor to the garden! For more wow factor, check out a few of our other inspiring garden posts. It took a while, but we finally got around to installing an outdoor privacy screen to hide our neighbours’ pool:

We also built these outdoor privacy screen ideas and a outdoor mirror that can expand any small outdoor space!

Once the garden was done, we packed in even more plants with these creative planter ideas.

Stay calm and relax on this summer!

At Birdz of a Feather, we’re feathering the nest… one room at a time. Follow our blog here or on Bloglovin’ to see other DIY projects, in and around the home. You can also follow us on Pinterest, our Youtube channel, Instagram and on Facebook.

 

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21 thoughts on “Rock Garden: Low Maintenance Gardening (Part 2)

  1. Beautiful, all of it. I love that frog, too. You’ve worked wonders with your space. it looks like an oasis. Well done, Sara.

  2. I absolutely love your dry creek bed and rock garden! I’m in Tulsa, OKlahoma, and we have frogs here that sit cross-legged like yours called ‘Peace Frogs’. I have plans for part of my backyard to do something similar to your dry creek bed and rock garden. Do you have to take your succulents indoors in winter?

    • Hi Debbie – thanks! Interesting about the frogs!

      There are only a few things that come in and they just go into the garage. We only put it away if it’s in a container such as a hosta that we have growing in a vintage enamel bucket (to slow the rusting).

      Sometimes the succulents that are in the hypertufa container that sit on top of a chair (beside the rock garden) go into the garage too, but we often just nestle it beside the rock bed to protect it from wind. Since they are hardy, they can stay out.

  3. Oh your garden is booooootiful and I want that frog. Stunning <3

    • Thanks Michelle; I love frogs – I have several others through the garden (and house). When I post the DIY on the pond we installed in the back, you’ll see some of the others 🙂

  4. Pingback: Low Maintenance Gardening (Part 1): Dry Creek Bed | Birdz of a Feather Home

  5. Lotz a hard work with Great enjoyment !;) Wonderful directions. Can not wait to start mine !!

    • Glad you found it helpful; send me some pics, when you’re done!! 🙂

  6. I love the meditating frog. I collect frogs in all shapes and sizes but haven’t seen the ones you have anywhere. You did a beautiful job on your garden. So peaceful!

    • Thanks Barbara! I collect both frogs and turtles, but these frogs are definitely a favourite in my collection 🙂

  7. Have been looking for ideas for such a long time. We have the exact layout as your backyard. I love it all and will be starting this summer. Thank you for the clear instructions and great pictures. You two are a great team!

    • Thanks Nellie; I think we’re a great team too 🙂 Best of luck with your own backyard – I’d love to see pictures when you’re done!

  8. Absolutely beautiful. I have been wanting to do something like this to our yard. I hope to one day.

    • Thank you. If you do decide to attempt this, you can find some great sales on plant materials in the fall and save some $$’s 🙂

  9. Such a beautiful back yard! But a ton of work. I know you’re proud of it.

    • Thanks for stopping by Sheryll; we sure are proud of it! It’s a small yard but you’re right about it being a ton of work. Thankfully, if you do it right, you only have to do it once and then sit back and enjoy 🙂

  10. This looks great. Would love to do a rock garden. But live in Vegas n everything seems to die from the summer heat. Any suggestions

    • We live in Florida and get some hot days, weeks, sometimes months! I would say use succulents and try to keep them in shade at least part of the day. When we lived in Tennessee I had no idea what to plant in my rock garden — on 3″ of clay on top of rock (on a mountain). I got the idea when I went for my walks to bring a spoon along and I would dig up flowering “TN weeds” that I was not familiar with in my former state, but they had flowers on them and were the right size. I don’t have the picture of that rock garden on the computer, have to find it and put it on here. It was the most beautiful garden ever!!! And weeds will grow anywhere, especially if you don’t want them there! Flowers too. Pat

      • Good idea re the succulents; we’ve add more of those to our rock garden.

  11. I’m in awe of how gorgeous all of it looks! I love the succulent plants! I haven’t ever heard of a Ginko tree or “Snow in Summer so I’m excited to look them up. I love how you take the time to show the steps you took to building the rock garden.
    Thank you for sharing this!

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