Here's a daunting Before shot--everyone who saw this said "get rid of the rocks" because that's All You Saw upon arrival to this newly-built and "landscraped" home. The boulders didn't leave much room for a garden, and were too "en garde" to be avant-garde. But boulder-rolling isn't in my job description. The most I could do was soldier a few extraneous Smaragd cedars from the back yard and line 'em up against the wall, eradicate a few of the existing big-box-sale selections, and go for camouflage tactics. Kept the Japanese maple, daylilies, and California Lilac (Ceanothus), theVirginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) on the stone wall, and Aucuba against the fence. The results are below: on planting, and a year later when it has filled in.
Funny how I got the shot when nothing is in bloom, but still nice foliage contrast, which is the point, right? Another couple years and the Heather/Kinnikinnik/Lithodora/Ivy will really soften the boulders. Mission complete.
Additional plantings:
Viburnum plicatum 'Summer Snowflake'
Rhododendron 'Ramapo' --purple-flowering
Blue Oat Grass (Helictotrichon sempervirens)
Coral Bells (Heuchera 'Palace Purple')--or any cultivar with purplish red leaves
Lithodora diffusa 'Grace Ward'--blue-flowering trailer
Heather (Erica carnea)--any pink-flowering cultivar
Ivy (Hedera helix 'Baltica')--small-leafed variety not as thuggish as big-leaf English Ivy
Serbian Bellflower (Campanula poscharskyana)
Kinnikinnik (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi)
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