Rock Garden SummerFall 2015

Rock gardens

Ladyslippers

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ROCK GARDENS

Summer and Fall

Cady’s Falls Nursery

Don & Lela Avery

637 Duhamel Rd. Morrisville, Vt. 05661

802-888-5559 [email protected]

Opuntia polyacantha pink form mid - June

Gentiana ‘Kingfisher’ in October

Gentiana paradoxa in October

Opuntia mid - June

Semprevivum ‘Sir William Lawrence’

Gentiana ‘Dali’

Yucca filamentosa ‘Color Guard’ in October

Saxifraga urbium ‘Variegata’ this plant

has persisted for 25 years

Dianthus ‘Sternkissen’

Sempervivum arachnoidium et al.

Cotoneaster cooperii

Sedum sieboldii in October

Cactus and lavender in July

Rock Garden becoming dominated by dwarf conifers

Rock Garden in July

Pulsatilla vulgaris seed heads in June

Berberis ‘Bagatelle’ A sterile dwarf barberry, can not be sold in Vt

Cyclamen purpurescens on a north-facing slope

HEATHER

Heather foliage coloring up in July

Calluna ‘Dark Beauty’ in September

Beginning of bloom in August

All the heathers are cultivars of one species, Calluna vulgaris, and they are reliably hardy here only with good snow cover. This means that they need to be sited where the snow will last through the winter months. A few inches of snow makes all the difference when temperatures drop down near zero. We prepare the heather beds with generous amounts of peat moss and we maintain a year-round mulch of white pine needles. We do not fertilize the heather beds. We shear the plants hard every spring before growth initiates. Heather are easily choked out; they can not compete with larger plants. They look great with conifers but, as years go by, the conifers prevail. We have had heathers persist in the garden for 20 years but we have also seen young vigorous plants die out from lack of snow cover, as witnessed by the brown foliage and empty spaces in the garden below. We lost most of our heathers in the winters of 2012 and 2013 but in 2014 we were pleased to discover dozens of volunteers popping up in the old beds.