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Rock Plants And Soil

Acaena caesiiglauca growing in a crack in a rock  at Denver Botanic Gardens

You know you have rock gardeners on your hands if the garden tour ends up (and stalls) in the nursery area. Aside from the rather obvious plants and rocks, a rock gardener’s garden is likely to have bins, buckets, and barrels (tucked somewhat out of sight) filled with various grades of gravel, sand, soil, and compost. If the hypothetical tour stumbles on this stash, you can be sure it will linger there for a very long time as well. Everyone wants to know what your seed mix is, where you got your nifty gravel top dressing and where you found that marvelous rock mulch? Sometimes I think our ilk cares more about the mineral content in our gardens than the chlorophyllic.

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Aethionema grandiflorum growing on a crack in a wall.
Aquilegia saximontana growing in a crack in a rock. Photo by Brian Core
Seseli gummiferum becomes long-lived when growing in a crevice.
Orostachys spinosa thrives in a shallow pot.
Orostachys spinosa blooming on top of a rock  in the Altai Mountains of Kazakhstan
Astragalus spatulatus growing in clay soil in the wild.
Dactylorhiza foliosa
Dactylorhiza sp.
Phlox condensata thriving in a massive trough at Denver Botanic Gardens
Trough at Denver Botanic Gardens

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