CREVICE PICKS, COAST TO COAST

Lifescape Colorado created a sustainable landscape befitting this rustic-luxe home designed by Barrett Studio Architects using organic materials.

Considering starting your own crevice garden? The key is to choose plants that thrive in your climate and prefer lean, well-draining soils, says Hadley Mueller at High Country Gardens.

Creeping phlox is a classic rock garden plant that flourishes in hot, dry, sunny spots and works well along sidewalks and driveways. Toss bluet seeds in the cracks of your patio to yield a profusion of small, delicate blue flowers. Other good bets are sweet fern (sweetly scented with fernlike foliage though not a true fern) and eastern red cedar, a native evergreen loved by birds and able to handle a wide range of conditions. Best of all? It thrives on neglect.

Opt for succulents that grow well in tiny, sloped spaces with rocky soils, where excess water drains off easily. These include chalk lettuce, Santa Catalina live-forever, lady fingers, California fuchsia, Baby Rita, chandelier plant, Graptoveria, and blue thistle. You might also try California buckwheat and indigo bush, both trailing plants that cascade beautifully over the tops of walls.

Plants like cold-hardy cacti, hens and chicks, and other low-growing, low-water (xeric) ground-covering plants with deep taproots that help in stabilization are ideal. Larger-growing xeric plants like hummingbird mint, lavender, sundancer daisy, beardtongue, and native sage work well too.