Euphorbia myrsinites (donkey tail spurge) is another great plant for dry, rocky places. The euphorbia is at the lower left of this picture, in bloom. Also, you might consider winter sowing lavender, portulaca, liatris, thrift (sea pinks) and lamb's ears. For plants you might choose to purchase, miniature and intermediate bearded irises are also hardy and tolerant of rocky garden conditions. Thrift and lamb's ears. This isn't a true rock garden, but it is similar in microclimate: dry, exposed, sandy, sharp drainage, very hot in summer. This bed includes stachys, thrift, donkey tail spurge, intermediate bearded irises, tulips, daffodils, asters ('Blue Bird' and a unknown dwarf), roses ('Blaze' and multiflora), a lilac ('Ludwig Spaeth'), allium siculum and allium 'Sensation,' sedum 'Autumn Joy,' sedum acre (a bit of a pest), a rose of sharon shrub, chives, and liatris. Dwarf evergreens would be a nice addition to your project, too. You can have worlds of fun with a large rock garden, what a great opportunity to try new things! Laurel

Any good garden centre that sells lawn seed should have small bags of white and red clover right beside it. It shouldn't be expensive either. I strongly recommend the white clover it doesn't grow as high as the red and it grows slower. Unless of course you are into making tea then red clover is right on. Buy a second bag and spread it on your lawn out back too... It is a natural fertalizer and will make your lawn look greener all summer long. Try and keep it an even spread through your lawn otherwise your lawn will start to look patchy. The below stolen from another website 1. It stays a luscious green all summer, without being irrigated profusely (i.e., it's drought-tolerant). 2. It is free of weeds, obviating the need to apply herbicides. Your carpet competes so well for growing space that the competition is choked out. 3. It doesn't need to be fertilized. 4. It is also relatively pest-free, so that you don't have to bother spraying pesticides on it. 5. It aerates the soil on its own, so that you don't have to worry about counteracting soil compaction. 6. It is soft to walk on. 7. It attracts beneficial insects, including honeybees. 8. It rarely has to be mowed. 9. It doesn't suffer the discoloration from dog urine known as "dog spots." And if, despite all these benefits, you should ever want to replace it with a different kind of green carpet, it helps you to do so by improving the soil on its watch. Its ability to aerate the soil and pump nitrogen into it means that succeeding generations of plants using that soil will be better off. Thats not a description of grass.... thats white clover. We have gotten too use to the golf greens me thinks. I'm a firm supporter of alternative ground cover. Grass has its place for areas of high traffic... I've done ground cover with clover and bugleweed mix and it looks really neat together... Just a thought. Diversity is common place in this world. And if they do get tall over a long period of time both can be mowed no problem. But they are both way slower growers then grass.

canudigit I am right now trying to decide what to do with the rest of my backyard in grass. Over half the backyard is already in gardens with mulch and outlined around the perimeter of that with large pavers. I have an area left of approximately 46 X 32 in grass. I have been trying to eliminate as much as I can but am hesitant for more mulching area. Literally have hundreds of thousands of maple seeds from neighbors trees drop in my mulch yard in May. Truly a nightmare trying to clean them up yet mowing is horrendous on my back and asthma and would love to get down to just mowing the front. Have worried about doing groundcover although I am considering the wooly thyme yet how much of a nightmare will I be dealing with trying to get maple seeds out of that. Maybe I could just mow over that also after the seeds drop. Can't deal with more of an area of trying to clean up seeds. Thought about just doing the clover so many are doing because atleast I could run the mower over that area. So am trying to decide what else to do here. CH

Greenbean - first of all, what a lovely house. And I'm jealous of that lovely, almost blank palette you've got to begin with. I don't have much to add to this, but I would be excited to use the retaining all to cascade plants over. I wish I had some grade differences in my yard to do that sort of thing. I've been going through the David Austen Rose Catalog, and I saw some lovely yellow English roses. Maybe a few of those, or some other similar landscape type rose would be nice to add. If you want some fall color, a couple of years ago I ordered 3 "October Skies" asters from Bluestone. I'm not sure that's what I got, as mine grew much larger than described, but they were very cheap and so maybe worth the try. (Or maybe some other blue/purple fall aster.) These were truly spectacular when in bloom I have to say. And finally, I think the High Country Gardens catalog is a great place to find some neat ideas for xeric plants. Good luck - I can't wait to see the transformation! Alice