When we started a crevice garden at the J.C. Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh, North Carolina, (one f the finest botanic operations on the planet, ) we thought it might be the first crevice garden in the America's Southeast. Today I learned that it wasn't, which is very cool, but that the old one was shut down last year. Dang.
The crevice-wall used recycled concrete and stone in the Mediterranean house at the John A. Sibley Horticultural Center at Callaway Gardens near Columbus, Georgia.
Also, in the last year, I discovered that the APEX crevice garden was not, in fact, the co-largest public crevice garden on the planet. It is outweighed by the one at Bangsbo, Denmark, built by the Czech Master, Zdeněk Zvolánek.
I am trying to channel his spirit and ingenuity this week as we build the newest addition in the expansion of the gardens of the Durango Botanical Society in Southwestern Colorado, USA.
View from the second-story balcony of the Durango Public Library; the garden straddles the intersection of the Library's sidewalk and the well-traveled river trail /commuter path.
The deer are checking our work by night.
This is a three-section twenty-plus ton Twilight Gneiss crevice garden, using a coarse sand and expanded shale "soil mix". 600 plus alpine plants (mostly from LaPorte Avenue Nursery) will find their young feet in it this weekend! Come to the workshop and lecture on Saturday (7pm at the Rec Center following 6:30 at the site) if you live nearby!
Erik of Canyon Landscaping, with the Durango-Silverton narrow-gauge puffing by along the glorious Animas River.
