// Ashley Coon
Crevice Garden & Misc.
// Ashley Coon
Crevice Garden & Misc.
INVESTIGATION
As a recent transplant to Tucson, I have the good fortune to be living in the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood near downtown, and with decades of community engagement, the local residents have transformed the neighborhood with a combination of water harvesting techniques and planting native trees and shrubs along the sidewalks to create a lush refuge from the desert heat.
I live in an old adobe house built in the early 1900s and multiple owners over the house's history have channeled their passion for gardening into the site. I'm doing my best to add to that history.
As a design opportunity, there's an existing mounded "island" dotted with a hodge-podge of cactus and native plants in the back yard that served as the impetus for a "crevice garden". The goal: utilize only building materials that exist on the property. Luckily, there is an abundance of large stones here and I was able to find enough to create a minimal "graphic" that interacts with the topography.
A few smaller cacti and succulents have been added to new version of the island, and I've seeded the remaining areas with wildflowers and small flowering perennials that have since started to sprout. I'm hoping that in the Spring, this little spot will be filled with color and activity.
A "crevice garden" is a garden typology that uses flatter stones to build layers that mimic alpine or rocky geographical conditions. Many species of succulents, grasses, wildflowers, and trees thrive in these conditions as it provides an infrastructure that protects from temperature swings and wind, and provides plenty of nooks and crannies for seeds to find a home and water to find its way down into the soil rather than running off.
Additionally, suitable areas have been selected to create vegetable gardens from mostly used building materials near the shed.
Depending on the light throughout he year, and with consideration of the intense summer heat and UV, crops are appropriately chosen to work in each zone. One in particular will become a traditional "three sisters" garden (corn, beans, and squash) alongside sunflowers and amaranth (which have historical agricultural precedent in Tucson).
Process & Misc.
/
/