There is so much happening in the gardens just now... it's almost hard to comprehend the beauty surrounding us. Tree peonies are coming into bloom and they are always an exciting part of early summer color. However, it's not the flowers that I want to talk about today, but rather an issue I've been having with part of the rockery.
Last year I moved a large number of plants, particularly epimediums, out so I could amend the soil as I felt the epimediums were suffering from poor drainage. The rockery soil was mainly my 'compost' which generally tends to be rich and heavy. Epimediums apparently prefer soil that is better drained than what I was offering them, and after five inches of rain last week, it was evident to me that they weren't entirely happy. So... what to do? Actually the same thing I did the year before... once again I removed and potted up all the plants. I was left with what you find in the picture below.
My goal,was to leave the japanese primroses as they are since they enjoy the soil as it is. There really wasn't a concern about the plants in general that populate the outside fringes of this part of the rockery. My goal was to significantly improve the drainage in the cleared out portion of the garden shown above, so that it would better suit the clump form epimediums.
I spent the morning visiting farmer's rock piles. After collecting a good sized pile, I carefully placed the rocks so there would be crevices to contain well drained soil which I composed myself. I used black top soil, compost, sand, and pea gravel; blending until it had the right "look" and consistency and filling it in between the rocks. When completed, I was able to reintroduce fifteen cultivars of clump forming epimediums into the crevices, the majority being cultivars of E. grandiflorum.
The resulting changes can be viewed below, minus the introduction of several double primulas and a big round stepping stone (for reaching the center of the garden) that I added at the base of the epimedium area after taking these photos. Note how black the original soil is in this area compared to the new soil amongst the stones.
Hopefully this isn't going to be a case of the third time being a charm, as I really don't want to go there!
All for now, Larry
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