Hi - I'm new to this forum. I'm hoping this is the place to ask for advice. My summer project has been getting rid of lawn and places that are hard to mow. I want to make a small rock garden (garden with rocks) on a slanted section of my yard. The soil is bad - the road department gave it to us for fill years ago (when they were doing work in the neighborhood and we were trying to make a level area). Much of my property is slanted/and/or hill). The area I'm working on now is clay with alot of rocks mostly.

I want to plant sempervivum, sedum, maybe a couple mini conifers (it's not a very big area). Rather than dig it up, I thought I would cover with newspaper and/or weed cloth. I have bark mulch, sand, good dirt (peat,perlite,grit,turface, etc) I can fill it with. And quite a few rocks for a border and for part of the actual bed.

I imagine this has been asked and answered before, but I didn't see it....What is the best mix (of the above to use in something like this? With the plants I'm going to use, I don't think allowing for root depth will be an issue. I live in the Pacific NW and we got LOTS OF RAIN, so I need good drainage. If I put newspaper as the bottom layer, will that allow good drainage?

TIA - I'm hoping to "build" this today, so any advice would be greatly appreciated! D

P.S. I made another huge shade bed a few weeks ago on a hill-ish area and put down weed cloth and covered with round rock - large and small - and I just noticed yesterday grass is growing through it, dang it!!!! - that's why I think maybe I should use newspaper on the new area too.