How to make the perfect home for plants from rocky places
This week I would like to tell you about a book that features an unfamiliar type of garden, the crevice garden. My husband Michael Midgley is a life-long gardener and the dry, cold climate in Lake Tekapo works in favour of rock gardening. In 2012 he read an article on a crevice gardening in the Czech Republic. This is a style of rock gardening that employs the crevices between rocks to mimic the conditions that many difficult-to-grow plants need. The crevice garden grows plants better than other rock gardens mainly because of the way in which it channels and conserves water. Michael set to work to create the first crevice garden in New Zealand and it has earned a mention in a book about crevice gardening by US authors Kenton Seth and Paul Spriggs.
In The Crevice Garden, the authors share their hard-earned expertise on the design, construction, and planting of these stunning ‘rock-and-plant’ installations. The book is mostly very practical with information on soil and plants, an 8 Step plan to building a crevice garden, ideas for a miniature crevice garden in a trough and several case studies all illustrated with beautiful pictures.
Kenton Seth visited New Zealand in early 2019 on a speaking tour. During this tour he also created the foundation for a crevice garden in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens and built another demo-garden in Lake Tekapo. After a hasty departure from New Zealand due to Covid, Kenton is returned to do a few more presentations in Christchurch. However, as the place in New Zealand with the most crevice gardens (two so far), Kenton was keen to meet all interested locals at an informal evening with wine and nibbles at the bookshop. He spome about his journey to becoming a crevice garden crusader, shared tips, answered questions, and did a demonstration with a mini crevice garden in a wee pot.
