Zone 3: Developing a New Gravel Garden/Rock Garden Expansion

In this video, I’ll share with you my plans to reclaim a large, now unused area to create a beautiful, low-maintenance gravel garden extension to my cold climate rock garden! We’ll discuss hardy drought-tolerant and heat-loving perennials that thrive in cold climates, perfect for harsh growing conditions. I’ll share my thought process for water-wise gravel garden with hardy plants that can handle extreme winters and hot summers.

Hi, how you doing? In today’s video, I’m going to share with you my plans to take a large unused area of the yard and create a beautiful lowmaintenance gravel garden extension to my zone 3 rock garden. My name is Sharon. I garden on a large yard in a small town in East Central Saskatchewan, zone 3. Welcome to my SAS garden. [Music] So just a bit about the history of this part of the yard. This part belonged to my grandmother and the house foundation is still there and makes up part of the garden. And so my grandmother had 25 ft including her house. It was a 25- foot lot. And then this section where the bench is and where I’m sitting, this belonged to my uncle Harry. They were brother and sister. They lived in separate little houses on the same yard. And eventually it all became ours. And initially when we landscaped it, it was a big grass area as well as a small um rock perennial border around the around the perimeter basically, not including the hedge, but uh it was very nice. Um we had a willow tree planted in the corner. The willow tree died. The some of the shrubs in the back were starting to die. Things starting started to change. You know, that’s sort of how gardens go. And so things began to change. At the same time, we bought a boat and we needed somewhere to store the boat. This was an excellent place to do that. Um, along with the boat came one of those big portable garages that we called the boat tent. And, uh, that’s how this was for, oh, I don’t know, eight years or so. Last year, we sold the boat. And after that, we sold the boat tent. And so this just became an unused space. So I tossed around all kinds of ideas in my head through the winter. One of the first ones I thought of was to have raised beds in here and uh to grow strawberries or maybe another or more vegetable garden. But mostly at first I was thinking of strawberries in raised beds. I spoke of that in a in a past video. Um, that idea really never stuck with me. I also thought of letting it go into like a growing a mini forest. Um, there was that idea that I had and also a li or a not a lily garden, an iris garden because I have a lot of iris. They seem difficult for me to incorporate into the perennial beds. So, I did think of that. I thought it would be nice to have their own space for iris. That didn’t seem like enough for me. And um also I thought about maybe like a mini orchard, but honestly what we have now is is plenty for what we need. And I don’t know that I would need more fruit. Um then I started thinking about an extension to the rock garden. And once I started going with that idea, it it all just seemed to bloom in my head and I and I knew that’s how I wanted to go. Um and and how I wanted it developed something simple, but uh um that that it would incorporate that kind of that kind of look, rock garden and gravel and um those types of plants. Uh it’s always been kind of what I’m really drawn to to begin with. We love to hike in or I love to hike in areas like that. Um southern Utah is one of my favorite places and northern Arizona one of my favorite places to hike and that’s exactly what the topography is. I mean it’s hillier than I’m going to get in flat Saskatchewan, but you know it’s it’s that kind of grally rough soil and uh and I do really like that kind of look. So, when I started to think of it as a rock garden, the idea in my head took hold. I have way more uh plants that I’d like to grow than I have room for it. It all just seemed to fit. And then I started thinking about the work that would be required to get it to how I want it to look and the materials that would be required. So, here’s how it looked just a couple of weeks ago. just a patch of dirt that has been kept clear of the weeds in the grass. And in the on the edges and in the corner, I’d been allowing the lamium to grow because when we still had the boat tent up, I thought it would make a great ground cover. Then a week or so ago, we had four yards of gravel delivered. It will make up uh the pathways, mulch, and some will be dug into the soil where I add plants. Right now, we’ve spread it so there’s about 2 in over the soil, and there’s a pile left for a little bit more area where the grass still needs to be dealt with before adding the gravel over top. Right now, I rad in the paths from that lead from the upper yard to the bench and as well to where I envision the entrance from the street side to be. I plan on a few flag stones in the grass leading up to the gravel. And then I think right at the entrance, Andy may build an armor arbor similar to the bench. I think that both the flag stone and the arbor will help to transition the grass to the rock garden. And I think the arbor will eventually hold clatus on either side. And this area where the where that black hose is, that that is where the flag stone will go. And within that hose is the area that still needs to the uh grass still needs to be dealt with. Here’s an overhead shot that Andy got with the drone that kind of shows it a little bit more um how it how it looks without the shadows on it. the design within. I plan to just keep it very simple with this curving center path that branches over to the bench. And this and then also up to the upper garden. And this essentially gives me three separate planting areas. And this side on the street side may hold a few taller perennials or perennial grass and a few rocks. So just so that it isn’t wide open to the street. I have two very large clumps of calamrastus el dorado that are in the backyard that could probably easily be divided into 50 divisions. But uh you know I only need maybe five. And with a gravel mulch and a few rocks, I think that’ll do the trick. And when I plant, um, and we’ll talk about the choice of plants in in just a second, but when I plant, my plan is is to rake away the majority of the gravel where I want that planting hole to be and then incorporate some of the gravel into the planting hole. The soil underneath the gravel is the typical black gumbo. It has a fair amount of clay as well. And I think that this gravel will provide good drainage for th those types of plants that uh that I’m hoping to plant here. And this gravel will pack down. I know that it’s the same stuff that’s under the crushed rock paths. I have going to the shed and just up flanking the rock garden and the greenhouse. It all has that this type of gravel underneath. But it’s surprising how well some of the seedlings and plants grow in there or want to take hold in there. So, I’m fairly confident the combination will make a good growing medium for the plants I want to grow. Now, this area in the corner that is a bit of a mess right now, but it’s, you know, it’s a work in progress. It’s where I envision the extension from the upper rock garden. So standing down from the lower area, you can almost envision from this upper area and this little hill that I have how it kind of can flow down into this area with this path in between. I think that I can add a plant or two here and then this area will get filled up with uh soil and gravel and compost and whatever else I can find that’s going to fill up here and step down. And so what I see is this kind of just stepping down with rocks and pockets of soil for plants to be grown and make its way down to the gravel to the lower area. And this stump I mentioned it used to be a willow tree that uh started to die. So we cut it all down and we killed the stump a number of years ago. But that stump was stayed at probably a couple or so feet high. Um there has been no sprouts or regrowth in those years. And Andy was working on it today with the chainsaw just to reduce the stump and he got it down as far as he could. I think it’ll now make a base for one of those large bowls I have just just above it. The bowl is actually in the half barrel, but um I think it’s going to make a base for one of those large bowls filled with annuals in the summer or else a large concrete bird bath um because I’d also like to incorporate that as well into this garden. So, all of my plants that still need to be potted or hiding in the shade. And a number of these are what I do hope to incorporate in the rock garden. I have two of these taller uh dark leaf sedums. This one is back and black and this one is called night embers stone crop. Um they have different I think they’re going to be about the same size. They do have different color blooms, but they’re still both kind of rosy or purple colors. So, I have two of those that I definitely do want to get in there. I also have a couple of these millennium alium and uh they bloom about this time, maybe a little later. And they are supposed to be quite long blooming. So, I thought and they’re also very heat and drought tolerant. So, I thought I’d get those in there as well. I have a a whole row. I don’t know how many. There must be at least 20 nodding onion. And you know, they’re blooming right now. They look lovely right now. And I think that they will also look very nice in the rock garden. I also picked up just the other day some of these Sunsparker blue elf. Sedum. The flower color is going to be later in in the summer and it’s going to be a deep pink. And you can see how the foliage has that nice blue tint to it. I think that that’s going to make a very nice combination with that sedum as well as with that alium. Um, in addition, I’ve been hanging on to these forever. Poor things. This is Cat’s Pajamas Catmint. And, uh, it’s a sterile cultivar. Won’t set seed. I sure hope it doesn’t set seed. Uh, and anyways, they they don’t grow as big as the cat or nepida that that we know of, like Walker’s low grows so huge, it’ll grow to a 4ft circle. This is going to stay a little bit smaller and a little bit lower. I was at Home Depot the other day and they were clearing out the color Spires Salvia, which the Violet Riot is is a color spire series. I think that they are great. I’ve mentioned the back to the fuchsia several times in previous videos and I, you know, I think that’s just the best. Um, another lavender color one or darker blue colored one bloomed this year as well and equally as beautiful. Anyways, um, I did pick up a pink Dawn in the same series earlier this year. I have it planted in the backyard now, but they were clearing them out at Home Depot, this size container for $5. So, you know, who can’t? I I’ve mentioned before I’m a deal seeker, so I picked up five of them. I don’t know if they’ll all go over there or if a couple more three uh two more will go in the backyard and three in the in the rock garden as well. I have some Russian sage. They were also on clearance. I know they would look good in the rock garden somewhere um toward the back. I just don’t know if they’re going to be a little bit too big for what I want there. I do want to stay with mostly with smaller plants. And this is the Dalmatian bellflower. I have planted five of them or so over there and I still have five left to plant. Um, they’re blooming now and I think they have such a pretty bloom and they are supposed to just uh carpet uh down rock faces and and walls and such. So, kind of like a an oettaite and uh which is diff more difficult to grow here. And I’ve discovered that the flea beetles like orietta. So, um, anyways, I still have those left to plant there as well. In addition, I have 25 packets of seed from the North American Rock Garden Society that I’ve not yet started those seeds yet. They’re mostly different varieties of alium and dianths. I’m I like dianths and so I did buy many different varieties of those. There’s some companulin. Oh, just a bunch of different kinds of seeds. So, we have a few piles of large rocks to move into this new gravel garden. And I’ll get a load of small rocks and pebbles to use as well, just for um you know, decorative adding to the mulch. And I think that it’s basically it’s going to be a work in progress. And I highly doubt it’ll be finished this summer, but we will get some plants in. It’s a great time to be moving and dividing iris. and those potted plants need to get in the ground. So, that’s it. That’s uh that’s the plans for the new gravel garden, and I’m quite excited about it. I’m interested to see if it’s all going to work. Um, but it it always this is the the the phase of a garden that I like the best and that is the planning and uh figuring out how things are going to go and what I’m going to plant where and blank canvases, you know, they really they really get my creative juices going and it it just feels like it has so much promise. It’s like looking at a tilled piece of earth before you plant it out and you just have that look of what this is going to be. And uh yeah, so I’m excited. I’m anxious to get going. I but as I said, I know it’s going to be a work in progress and it’s going to take it’s going to take a while, but I’m okay with that, too. Hey, thanks very much for watching today. I hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, give me a thumbs up, tell your friends, and if you haven’t yet, hit that subscribe button. Thanks again. See you.