How to Make a Slot Garden
In many types of landscape design, diversity is key. Decisions are made on the basis of creating areas of different heights, colors and textures. Cleft gardens have become increasingly popular over the past few years as they provide all of the above, as well as being a focal point in the landscape, and once built, they are relatively easy to care for. Here’s what you need to know about how to make a slot garden.
What is a slot garden?
If you’ve ever seen plants growing through cracks in the sidewalk or between paving stones, then you’ve seen tiny, unintentionally planted gardens. The cleft gardens that people create in their backyards are, in fact, designed to mimic these conditions — or more accurately, when they occur naturally (rather than on a sidewalk or driveway) in mountainous areas.
How to make a slot garden
Slotted gardens require a little upfront work, but after that they are fairly low maintenance. While you can use any type of large stones in any order, Czech cleft gardens , which are especially popular these days, take flat stone slabs and arrange them vertically and parallel to each other.
Here’s what to do:
- Dig the trenches deep enough to keep the stone slabs upright and stable. Laying clay around the base of the rock helps.
- Fill the gaps between the stones with a potting mix consisting of equal parts topsoil, compost, and a material that adds drainage, such as sand, perlite, or gravel.
- Water the soil thoroughly several times to close air pockets deeper in the ground.
- Plant a mixture of small plants that do well in sunny and well-drained rocky soils, such as bearded vulture (Penstemon), hens and chickens (Sempervivum), stonecrop (Sedum), watercress (Aubrieta), dwarf conifers, and ice plants. .
Caring for a slotted garden is relatively simple : just water the plants as needed, pull out any weeds that appear, and when autumn arrives, pinch or trim any dead flower stems.