Ideas for a Sloped Rock Garden

Asian Simplicity

• Japanese gardens are known for subtle beauty and elegant placement of interest points. Create tiers or gentle terraces to either plant or simply cover with small pebbles and sand. Establish a central focus point, such as a large rock, or a grouping of stones surrounded by mosses and low-growing succulents. Bonsai plants can be kept in pots or dug into the ground. Add a bell, wind chimes and a few solar lanterns in Asian designs for special night-time lighting effects.

Creeping Beauty

• Carve a pathway that weaves up or across the sloped area. On either side arrange stones and rockery and fill with plant choices such as those that will wander and vine outward. Don't overlook plants that most people grow on trellises such as clematis, as they'll add color with summer bloom and fall foliage. Plant lemon or other thyme to creep through the stones, as well as hens-and-chicks, vinca, alyssum and others. Add a few touches of higher ground interest such as three small evergreen shrubs placed far apart.

Waterfall

• There's nothing like a waterfall in any garden. A slope is ideal for installing one, even if you don't have a naturally occurring stream. You can find pump mechanisms that reuse the water, and set up an irrigation system for the entire rock garden around it. Create an area for water to collect on the lower level and add a foot-wide pathway alongside the stones of the falls. Extend the garden out to both sides using a few azaleas sparsely planted and the rockery filled with medium perennials and low growers.

Celtic Myth

• Scotland, Ireland and Wales have landscapes that allude to mystical times. Standing stones and rocks abound. Turn your sloped property section into a rock garden that mimics the ancient Celts. Plant low groundcovers between stepping stones and other rocks and top the space with a focal piece of a Celtic cross or dolmen (such as in the photograph). Wildflowers that require little maintenance and do well in poor soils are a nice finishing touch for such a garden.