conifer

All this winter snow and cold has got me dreaming of warmer days and beautiful gardens. And I can't think of any gardens more beautiful than the raised beds and tabletop landscapes designed and maintained by my friend Jerry Kral in his Zone 6, Rochester, NY property.

A master gardener and past president of the American Conifer Society, Kral's newest addition is a gigantic, raised-bed rock garden. (Once he filled up his own yard with raised beds, terraces and a grotto filled with rare and unusual conifers and other plants drooled over by the likes of plant gurus Michael Dirr and Allan Armitage), he bought the property next door and has completely filled it, too. Now, in the place of what used to be all lawn now sits "tabletop rock gardens" featuring miniature conifers and other alpine plants growing amongst the porous lava rocks placed atop huge "tables" made out of neolithic-looking stone slabs.

Here's the tour of it I took this past fall: 

Check it out just for the pure, unadulterated plant porn it is. Or if you're looking for ideas on how to add stone to your garden. Or if you're a cold-climate gardener like me and you're looking for rock garden plants that can take the cold.

"If you were to tabulate the amount of time I spend maintaining this compared to maintaining a lawn, there’s really not much difference," says Jerry. "And it’s a heck of a lot more interesting than just whipping back and forth on a lawn."

As you can see in the picture below, Jerry likes to create what he calls "tabletop rock gardens" out of two vertical slabs of stone topped by another slab, forming a stone table. Atop the "table" here is a bed of reddish lava rock hosting an assortment of cold-hardy, miniature conifers and alpine plants.

"I saw this in the Czech Republic when we were there a couple summers ago," he says. "They had these beautiful rock gardens, but they had theirs on metal posts. I decided, 'Why use metal posts when I can use vertical slabs of stone?' " The naturalistic effect, I think, is nothing less than stunning – and it's a great space-saver if you don't have a lot of land.

You can get the stones from your local landscaping supply place that sells stone, says Jerry. "But you have to be pretty strong. Some of those slabs have to weigh about 200 to 300 pounds, so you have to know what you’re doing."

Jerry loves the lava stone because it wicks away moisture, "so very quickly you get beautiful colonies of moss and lichens … It looks like it’s been there forever."

The whole garden freezes solid in the winter, so Jerry has to select his plants carefully. They must be hardy to Zone 3, at least for his Zone 6 garden.

Here's the miniature 'Hedgehog' juniper  he chose: "It grows about an inch a year, but can be pruned if it gets too big."

And here's a little Norway spruce called 'Stoner' … "Probably because it looks whacked out," jokes Jerry.

Then there's this ice plant (it has yellow flowers when in bloom), "which is doing VERY well," notes Jerry.

And this is a little tiny mugo pine called Little Needle  (or was it Little Leaf? I don't remember which … )

Well, I've got a lot more to come on Jerry's gardens from my tour this past fall. Stay tuned and keep dreaming of spring!

So as I mentioned in my previous post (on vegetable container gardening), I just moved to a new home with a completely blank slate in the back for gardening.

And seeing how it’s still winter here in western New York (and probably will continue to be for what feels like about six more months), I’m grabbing some of my 2 ½-year-old daughter’s paper and crayons, and remembering the best gardening (and landscaping) advice I ever got:

Start with raised beds, and be sure to use conifers (cone-bearing plants, mostly evergreens). The raised beds give you good “garden bones” and the conifers provide fantastic foliage and year-round texture, color and shape.

Of course, this advice came from conifer enthusiast, master gardener and former neighbor Jerry Kral, who has turned his Rochester, NY property into a terraced conifer dreamland featured in Better Homes & Gardens (see image at right, from the Genesee Valley Rocks! gardening blog at www.gvnargs.blogspot.com).

Building your raised bed

Before you stick any plants in the ground, Jerry taught me, the idea is to create a frame for your “art.” 

First, determine the shape of your bed (a natural, organic form looks best – try something like a kidney bean). You may want to spraypaint the border on the grass and then run a course of bricks or stone (about $200 a pallet) on top of them. For the lovely terraced look you see (above) in Jerry's garden, you can feel free to go a few courses higher.

Next, plan on filling in that border with dirt (sorry, gardeners – “soil”) about 3 to 4 feet high and 4 to 6 feet wide (landscapers can provide the fill dirt for about $30 a cubic yard). If you plan to use dwarf or miniature conifers, (an especially good idea if you want low-maintenance or easy-care gardening), maybe go a bit smaller. Or, if you're putting in plants that are going to expand a lot as they grow, go a bit larger.

Next, just wheelbarrow the dirt from the delivered pile (usually on a tarp in your driveway) to your raised bed, and just shovel it right onto the grass within that border. No need to kill or dig out the turf below.

Designing your raised bed

Try to start with taller trees for a high leaf canopy. Add bushes and shrubs for a midlevel canopy. Then, fill in the bottom part with groundcovers and lower-growing perennials, bulbs, annuals, ornamental grasses, gnomes, flamingos - whatever it is that floats your boat.

Then, consider putting a tall, dark plant (like juniperus scopulorum 'Skyrocket') in the center or back and two weeping conifers (like Golden Cedar) on each outer edge. Fill in the space between with round- or bun-shaped conifers (like chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Green Globe') and a few tall, skinny ones (I'm a big fan of 'Sky Pencil' holly). Arrange smaller plants at the front, from shortest on the outside to tallest in the center.

Then, add a big rock. Or three. Or five. Odd numbers are better. If you're using three, get one small, one medium and one large. For a more natural effect, try to find stones that are native to your area.

For a high-impact look, try contrasting colors. Blue-green and yellow-variegated conifers go great together. So do dark green varieties with those variegated white.

Also contrast textures — stiff, sharp needles of spruce or pine, for instance, with the cup-shaped, ferny Hinoki cypress or the stringlike chamaecyparis pisifera.

Next, mix it up for a more natural look. In nature, notes Jerry, you won’t find straight lines or a mass of just one kind of shape, color, texture or kind of plant. So mix in some deciduous trees and shrubs as well as herbaceous perennials, annuals, bulbs, ground covers and ornamental grasses.

I’ll get more into planting when spring gets here. But now’s my time for dreaming, and I’m checking out mail-order sites such as Arrowhead Alpines and Greer Gardens and garden blogs such as The Amazing World of Conifers, The Garden Years, A Way to Garden and Daniel Mount Gardens. You can also find images of conifers and cultural information at the American Conifer Society Web site.

Are you a conifer lover? Let me know some varieties and plant compositions that have worked for you! And please feel free to post some pics!