Need Help Choosing Rockery plants

One of my clients has a small rockery with a small pond in a corner of her garden ... (there are no fish in the pond )

she has asked me to landscape that area ... the area is in shade/semishade ...

I used hakonechloa macra auerola grass for the edging, a few huechera georgia peach, a few brunnera Jack frost and some dryopteris felix mas ferns), a fatsia japonica, and an acer bloodgood


she is not happy with my choices, and wants a different design with small flowering rockery plants ...

can anyone suggest a few plants that will suit the semishade/shade?

 

I have fallen in love with a little blue parahebe that is flowering its little socks off right now Dim. Do you want a piccie?

 

yes please Jenny

I will sit next to my client on friday morning with my laptop, and try and landcape the area to her exact specs ... so all suggestions are welcome! ...

she has made mention that her garden has too much green and she wants flowery type stuff

I went for foliage that keeps it's colour for most of the year

I'm hoping to get loads of suggestions on this thread, and I will call this thread up as we work through the design

the pic that I posted may be a bit misleading, as the small pond is under some large shrubs (semi to heavy shade) .... I was going to add some hostas, but then you have the hassle of snails ... so I opted for Jack frost

 

Hi Dim,
hot off the press - just for you,
Jenny

 

It's always tricky suggesting stuff when you can't see the plot or get a feel for the scale and size of the space to be filled and the amount of actual shadiness. That said, off the top of my head, I'd throw the following into the pot to consider:

Campanula (the low growing ones do quite well in shade, clips is popular and poscharskyana is handsome and flowers a long time)
Alchemila Mollis
Cranesbill (mine do well is fairly deep shade and are floriferous, lots of options)
Astilbe (there are some dwarf varieties if necessary, gives nice late colour)
Astrantia (unspectacular but handsome, there are some lovely raspberry ones!)
Dicentra (Eximia is best IMO as it keeps its foliage well and flowers a long time)
Foxgloves (there are dwarf varieties)
Fuchsias (would be ideal if your client likes long flowering and a bit showy)
Pieris
Cotoneaster (some of the dwarf spreaders are nice)
Aquilegia

For structural plants I think ferns would be a must in my books interspersed and there are some nice dwarf clumping bamboos (I like bimbo) but may be a little on the big side?

GG

 

Thanks Jenny ... much appreciated!

 

Thanks! ... much appreciated! ...

 

Very nice selection. Like a good box of QUALITY chocolates. I like them All GG!!

 

My favourite rockery plant is Oxalis, such pretty leaves too!!

Val

 

thanks Val ... have added that to the list

 

Hi Dim,

You have said your client requires a rockery but your plan does not seem to include ROCKS !!!!!!

It is not that easy to construct a rockery and too often not enough thought is put into how a rockery is built, they tend to just scatter the rocks randomly ending up with a currant bun effect. To do this successfully you need decent sized rocks to start with and consider how it would look if it had been made by nature . Construct screeds, stepped soil levels and "cliff faces" by clumping some rocks closer together while some may be more scattered but NOT evenly spaced.
The planting also needs to be more natural looking with lower growing, creeping plants (maybe Lysimchia nummularifolia) spreading down the screeds using the drift effect then larger plants as specimen statement plants.

The choice of plants is obviously determined by how shady it is and most plants you would like to use may not do that well in shade.
A natural rockery would not of course be in shade at all as it would be half way up a mountain above the tree line, so they don't have to deal with shade.

Just thought I'd put my pennysworth in, maybe it is more the sort of thing your client has in mind.

 

thanks ... there are rocks, but it's not visible in the photo .... the plants that I chose will do well in shade

 

I'm with you Dim, I think Rockery is very yester-year, they are fussy little gardens, and there never seem to be any substantial plants in them - so its a collection of plantsman's plants, rather than an "impact".

Dunno what to suggest though, but a photo of the site, as it currently is, would help

 

I may be wrong, but true rockery plants tend to prefer sun - think about where such plants would grow in their natural habitat........

However;
Saxifraga
Digitalis lanata and parviflora (grown both in shade from noon'ish onwards)
The previously mentioned Lysimachia nummularia
Fuchsia procumbens
Penstemon pinifolius in the sunniest spot
Mecanopsis (blue and yellow forms)

Basically, nothing too garish! However, an exception should be made for any of the blue Mecanopsis!