Return to the farm on Dairy Creek

Last fall I wrote about my visit to Craig Quirk and Larry Neill's new garden on Dairy Creek. I returned again last week, while my friend Kenton Seth was there building an absolutely epic series of crevice gardens with Chris Dixon and a local crew. I'll start my coverage at the entrance to the garden. Everything you see is surrounded by a deer fence. 

Looking to the right, there's a potting shed/out-building under construction below the plastic hoop house cover.

Looking to the left, there's a veggie/cutting garden.

And of course there is a greenhouse, an off-the-charts amazing Hartley Botanic greenhouse. But I was here for the rocks...

Specialized rock gardens known as crevice gardens—filled with different soil mixes and varying crevice widths—were built to surround the greenhouse on all sides. I'm going to direct you to a few Instagram accounts in this post, the first of which is that of Dale Hickey. He took at great video of Kenton walking on one of these rock gardens, which shows just how deep the rock is buried, and how tough they are. Click here and then through to the 10th and last image to see the video. 

Here's a section under construction. You can see the gravel/sand mound in the center into which more rocks will be placed.

Dale was just one of many folks I know who visited the site last week. That's one of the things that makes this project so wonderful, Craig and Larry are all about sharing it.

That's Kenton's partner in this rock garden project, Chris Dixon, at work below. He's got some great photos and stories about the build on his Instagram feed as well.

Here's a section with wider planting crevices.

One of my favorite things was how the rocks just slightly over shot the metal border here in this section.

Look at all those fabulous planting pockets!

Over on the far side of the greenhouse there was crevice valley...

It's gonna be fun to watch these spaces fill up with plants, Craig is in no hurry though, he's aware it's gonna take time.

As we were walking around Kenton suggested we go inside the greenhouse to check out the view from that vantage point.

Not bad, eh?

High summer isn't exactly prime greenhouse time, but it was nice inside thanks to the shade cloth.

I can only imagine what treasures will be on those shelves once the greenhouse is in full use.

Back outside there's Kenton to the right of the greenhouse door. His Spanish skills were called into play speaking with the support crew hired to assist Kenton and Chris (on the far left) with the build.

And while the crew did start out as hired help for moving rocks, gravel and sand, over the days they worked with Kenton and Chris they became versed in the methods, skill and thoughts behind building a crevice garden, eventually taking on sections of the garden as their own. This project has many ripples of creativity that will move outward into the community, it's pretty fabulous to think about.

After a walk around the building site Craig took me over to visit the creek, on the way I spotted some of the plants in waiting, destined for the crevices.

That magical creek...

And now we're back in the garden...

Glycyrrhiza uralensis

Seed grown (look at those seed heads!) from seed collected in Piet Oudolf's garden.

Greenhouse as seen from the surrounding garden.

You'd never know it once you're standing in the garden, but the public road one takes to get there cuts under those trees on the left.

To my way of thinking the crevice garden—and all of it's rocky severe shapes—is the perfect break/contrast/transition between the greenhouse and the surrounding garden.

Volunteer sunflowers from the previous year's planting.

Tomatoes, garden "shed" and cutting garden.

If you have a look at Chris Dixon's Instagram feed you'll see he specializes in creating small containerized crevice gardens, yet this was a new idea for him, including a piece of wood in the mix (the vertical element).

Here's another, built with sempervivum. How dreamy is this?

When I visited there were two large Agave ovatifolia waiting to be planted out in the finished crevice garden, later this image showed up on Craig's Instagram, I had to borrow it. Kenton looks like he's paying his respects to that agave, don't you think?

From a post on Kenton's feed I borrowed this image, both agaves are planted in place. If you're interested click though to a video he did here, then a super detailed post here (note the butterfly design) and and another here. I should also mention the garden at Dairy Creek was designed with Laura Crockett, aka Garden Diva Designs.

Oh and one more thing! Should you plan on attending the Hardy Plant Society Study Weekend next June, this garden will be on the itinerary!

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