Always A Difficult Site: My Scree Bed

My scree bed

I have a difficult site.  My house literally sits on an alley way with my deck entrance immediately adjacent to my car.  Instead of shrubs which could not stand the snow load off the alley, my parking spot, and the deck; I have a scree bed wrapping my deck.  Everything pretty much dies to the ground in the winter,  The xeriscape type plants like the south exposure and the alkaline gravel.  Any plant in this bed will survive growing in a rock wall crevice.

I had the least die-off in this bed than anywhere in my garden.  Plants here are in their zone and their environmental niche.  It features a lot of low sedums, a couple geraniums, catmint, sempervivrens, lavender (which did die to the ground, but is surprisingly coming back from the roots this year), and dianthus.  My deutzia (which is a low spreader) even shows remarkable zone tolerance in this bed.

I did work some compost into this bed when I first planted it.  It is mulched with pea gravel and edge with rock, which adds to its xeriscaped appeal.