The ground I garden on is the same ground that defeated New Englanders trying to farm and live on hillsides away from the fertile valleys of the Merrimack and Connecticut rivers. They abandoned their plots after the Civil War, and left for the more docile, welcoming soils of the Midwest.
Always dry, this soil is harsher this spring since no rain has fallen in a month. But the lowbush blueberries and the roadside and ditch weeds will abide.
This photo is of the lawn in front of a granite retaining wall. Feral daylilies hug the wall base because the foot of a wall is a moister place to be. Not one tuber tries to venture out.
But look at what does dare to grow here-
Hawkweed,cinquefoil, and in the center, Aster lateriflorum.
Just the place for a new garden bed! I have already dug out this aster and some others I found to save them from the mower man, if he gets to this patch of ground before my shovel does-
What will I grow here?
Russian sages, globe thistles, white perennial scabious, Clary sage, Silver King artemesia, “Fireworks” gomphrena-
Then, looking to the power lines and the harsh fields- the Old Field goldenrods, the Showy goldenrods, the Heath asters, and the Calico aster, the biennial tall Evening Primrose.
The Gold Sword Yucca, for architecture and as a foil to all the flowering.
Gardening On Granite 