Hi John,

I did a search for Rock Garden books at my local library and found several! Lots of ideas and plans in print, and tremendous amounts of information on cultivation.

After deciding the best two locations for what I wanted, I had to figure out where to acquire the best rocks to work into my slope.

Luckily a lot is sloooowwwwly being excavated in town and all sorts of wonderful limestone is cropping up and can be taken away at no cost but sweat equity.

From there I found what candidate plants were available for purchase locally in pots or seed, and for free from the woods on our property. While doing all this research I was also acquiring the ingredients for the 'dirt' I would be using (and letting it percolate) and got info for making hypertufa troughs in case I wanted to add one or two into the design. :-)

When the weather is too bad to work with plants, I can always work with rocks and soil or do more research on plants! And in th e process I looked around at a few local gardens and have discovered some wonderful rockeries that have been built in our area. There was never a gardener who could resist telling you how they have made their garden works!

So my advice is check your library and if you need to purchase books see what an Amazon search can come up with in used books.

Have fun!
Mia in Indiana

Where ever possible try to avoid putting the rocks in rows, try to make it look natural. Vary the height. My biggest tip is to be absolutly sure to eliminate ALL PERENIAL WEEDS before starting, especially quack grass. It loves to hide under the rocks and continue to reimerge again. If you have it you will eventually end up moving all the rocks back out to get rid of it.
Catrina