Portulaca? Evening primrose (Oenothera species)

Are you looking for perennial, evergreen or what?

I'm looking for perennial, evergreen, anything............. I have ALOT of gravel area that butts up to large rocks. Currently a few stray weeds grow there. I would like to find things to take over. This year i planted some sedum - deep red - may be called dragon's blood. It has been extremely dry - not doing real great. Maybe will come in next year better - it was from bare root this spring. Might just be getting situated :) thanks for any help. By the way - definitely needs to be a perennial or an annual that reseeds easily.

Hey, my situation sounds similar to yours. I was thinking about ice plant...

Here is a link that might be useful: ice plant

So is this and area with gravel spread over your native soil? Most plants that grow in gravel still need enough underlying soil to send their roots down into.

In the front of our house we have a 6 foot section of road base (no sidewalks where I live). Several plants have seeded themselves in this area, mainly where the rain waters collect. I suspect that if I actually tried to grow a couple of other plants here and watered the area they would do well also. The plants that have seeded themselves here are as follows: Anacyclus depressus, Cerastium tomentosum, Saponaria ocymoides, Centranthus ruber, Aubretia, Festuca glauca & a Penstemon hybrid.

There are several other plants that I can think of that would work, given they had enough underlying soil and occasional watering. The annual portulaca reseeds and returns reliably for me in zone 5, its one of my favorites. Also, ice plants - Delosperma and D. nubigenum. You might also check out other South African succulents like aloinopsis, chasmatophylum and rabia. Continuing on, wooly thyme, cotula, maybe Melampodium leucanthum and perhas some of the low growing veronicas.

Other plants that I suspect would love this type of area but may be larger than you want are Mirabilis multiflora(reseeds in my gravel pathways) and Abronia fragrans. The Abronia has a lovely scent when it blooms during the evening. There is also an Abronia nana that is about 1/3 the size of A. fragrans that is nice as well.

Hope this helps some.

anacyclus depressus-no common name I know of. I got mine mail order and planted it along a gravel driveway in full, hot, dry Nevada sun, unimproved, hard, near lifeless soil and it has spread and colonized beautifully. Claims to be hardy to zone 5. Catalog says it blooms in early spring..mine bloomed in early spring, mid, late, into summer, paused when temps hit 100+ and has now resumed sporadic blooming.