Is this soil mix good for rock garden, and these plants???

12 years ago

This Wednesday a truck full of 25-to-30 200lbs moss rocks will come delivered in front of my house and I will finally start my rock garden project!!!!

Now I need some help from you super-fantabulous expert guys!!!

I have a loamy soil in my garden, but the problem is that the soil where I am going to sit my rocks on was lived by huge bushes that were cut down to the ground, although the entire root system was left underneath. These roots are almost impossible to pull out, if not really expensive. Can I avoid digging the soil if I already cover it with 2 inches of limestone sand (or granite sand, I still have to think about it) and topped with another 2 inches of 3"-6" colorado river rocks? I would put the moss boulders on top of this terrain.

Then off to the rock garden soil. Is this combination good for my rock garden (I will list the plants I want to grow below):

1 part of garden soil

1 part of peat moss

1 part of poultry grit

*(should I add 1 part of limestone/granite sand to it as well?)

Also, should I mound the soul before laying the boulders, or should I first lay the boulders and then fill the crevices with the soil?

Now, the plants I would like to grow are the following (still, I would like to know if these plants would grow on the south side of the house located in Dallas TX):

1) Armeria maritima 'Compacta'

2) Delosperma ashtonii 'Blut'

3) Ruschia pulvinaris

4) Alyssum montanum 'Mountain Gold'

5) Pulsatilla vulgaris

6) Dianthus

7) Phemeranthus (Talinum) calycinum 'Judith's Favorite'

8) Hirpicium armeriodes v.

9) Helianthemum nummularium

Aster oblongifolius
Hymenoxys scaposa
Saponaria ocymoides
Nananthus transvaalensis
Royal Candles Speedwell
Callirhoe involucrata
Zinnia grandiflora
Anacyclus depressus
Aloinopsis 'Karoo Red Mix'
Escobaria leei
Penstemon pinifolius 'Compactum'
Festuca tenuifolia 'Angel Hair'

Thanks for your time, really! I love gardening and I would like to make my house garden one of the future meeting locations of the Rainbow Garden Club of North Texas!

Rino

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Comments (4)

greenhavenrdgarden
11 years ago
Looking for a similar question. Wished this one had gotten a reply. Not sure if I should mound the soil and then add the rocks or place rocks and then fill in w/soil. Also not sure what kind of mix to use in the rock garden.
Sorry your question couldn't be answered. Some forums are much busier than other.
botann
11 years ago
Mound and shape the soil first, then add rocks.
Here's the beginning of mine. I had the rocks dropped off above the garden and then slid them down on a length of channel steel into place. It beats rolling them! I used a metal bar for final placement to get them 'just right'.
Mike
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Pudge, Actually, it's kind of a funny but it's unlikely that most of the rocks you're seeing are really "from" your area. Most of the rocks we see at surface on the prairies were actually transported from large distances away by the movements of the glaciers... (Same where I grew up in central Sask... strange that one would become a geologist in the relative absence of rocks! Or of outcrops, at least!) I believe the nearest outcrops of in-situ bedrock (i.e. older than glacial age; exposed at the surface) would be up along the Hanson Lake Road area, approaching The Pas, and in the Shield area to the east and southeast, and in the Cypress Hills to the west...(I'll have to check this, against a map of Saskatchewan geology, though, to be sure that there isn't some pre-glacial strata outcropping in the river valleys in the area.) So, anyway, the rocks you see in the fields, and in the young glacial deposits that are dug up as gravel pits (after being eroded/transported and weathered down into gravel), were generally transported by glacial action, generally from the Shield area. So, the rocks you see are likely to be a mix of sedimentary, volcanic and metamorphic, since they were picked up across the vast terrain along which the glaciers moved. Yes, it's very likely that some of your rocks are granite or other volcanics, others are metamorphic (schist, gneiss), some are sedimentary (limestone, sandstone); the quartz cobbles or boulders could have had a variety of origins (may have been weathered out of very-coarsely crystalline volcanic rock, or from fracture-filling; or sedimentary from fillings of cavities, or metamorphic from recrystallization of sandstone). The sparkly ones may be schist, a metamorphic rock containing abundant flat, shiny crystals (biotite and muscovite) that are all aligned by heat and pressure and folding. Anyway, that may be a little more than you wanted to know, LOL! Sorry, I can't think of a good website offhand for rock ID but I'll think about it and ask at work...
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pippi21
10 years ago
Mike,
Where do you buy poultry grit? Does it come in bags, boxes, and in small quanities? I have a flowerbed in back on our house that is now a foundation type bed. We have amended that soil several times and it still is not what I find the best. We have to be very careful when we did there because of the cable wire running in back of that bed. It is under the eaves of the house so unless the rain is a blowing type rainfall, I have to water with the garden hose. It gets the morning and early afternoon sun, and roses do very well there. I've been considering turning it into a rock garden. It's not very big(length wise). I've been considering building up a low wall with bricks or landscaping stones, and build up my soil like a slope. Does this make sense? I have a few rocks to get started with and probably the wintertime or late Fall would be a good time to buy more rocks for this idea. Because of the weight, I would only buy a few at a time if I need to buy them. I'm making a list of potential rock garden plants but your list is very good. Some plants I don't recognize the botanical names so I'll have to look them up. Some plants I know one can purchase at local garden center in the Springtime or by wintersowing my own flower seeds in milk jugs or other plastic containers.
mikebotann
10 years ago
The last time I bought poultry grit was when I was a kid on a farm in eastern Washington State in the late 50's. Any farm supply store will have chicken grit.
The important thing when building a rock garden is good drainage. Sand and gravel can accomplish this. Plant your rock garden plants in pockets of soil in the gravel using more or less soil depending on the demands of the particular plant you're using.
Here is the beginning of one of my rock gardens. The rocks are placed high on ridges of soil, right side up, in what I call 'lumpy strings'. Then I dig out between the rocks to get them up as high as possible, because by the time the rock garden plants grow a bit, and a mulch is applied, the rocks start to disappear. You don't want to cover up expensive rocks and the work you did to create a structured rock garden with 'bones' or spine. Rocks are on ridges as outcroppings, not in valleys.
Mike

Is this soil mix good for rock garden, and these plants???

Comments (4)

greenhavenrdgarden

botann

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