I started having visions back in December of a desert rockery on the Southwest
corner of the yard. I've come to realize this small corner has an
amazingly desert-like microclimate: it's in full sun most of the day, it's right next
to the road which soaks up heat during the day, and it gets some frost & rain
protection underneath the canopy of a tall deodar cedar (Cedrus deodara).
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December 28th, 2012 |
There was a Japanese maple, an umbrella pine, a barberry, a small hardy banana cutting, and a fairly ugly patch of candy tuft that all had to be transplanted somewhere else (by the way, the picture below was taken on Dec. 28th, 2012 - pretty amazing the banana leaves were still in tact that late into the season).
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December 28th, 2012 |
There was only one thing left to do to make this the best possible spot
for growing opuntias, agaves, aloes, dyckias, and other heat-loving
plants outdoors....Add lots and lots of sand...
Six 100-pound bags to be exact. This sand was so pristine and
white, I almost felt guilty burying it all. I hand-mixed it with garden
soil to create a "dirty sand" mix of about 60% sand and 40% soil. This pindo palm (
Butia capitata) that has been growing in a pot for the past few years finally has a permanent home.
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March 3rd |
I started taking cuttings of some plants growing in other places. The plant with the silvery-green leaves is
Astelia chathamica 'Silver Spear'. Of course I had to borrow (permanently) some big rocks from other places in the garden to make a sort of skeleton to keep all that well-draining sand in place. It's hard to tell in the picture, but this hill is about 3' tall, with pretty steep slopes.
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March 3rd |
The little plant in the lower left corner in the picture above is
Opuntia humifusa. I saw this growing as a groundcover outside the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. I wasn't about to let Chicago grow a cactus outside that I didn't have in my garden. Luckily
Far Reaches Farm came to the rescue and had the plant in stock.
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March 16th |
I used pea gravel as a mulch.
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March 23rd |
It will help keep the sand from blowing away and hopefully keep dogs and cats and kids from digging in it (it's basically a giant sandbox after all).
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March 31st |
Here are a couple before & after shots (Dec. 2012 Vs. April 2013):
What started back in January as Project #1 for the year is now 99% complete...which is about as complete as it's going to get!