A few things came to mind as soon as I read this....here we go...

Dicentra eximia - beautiful plant, small, and they look great against an evergreen background

Aruncus aesthifolius - very small species of the very large perennial Goatsbeard....very pretty, very petite with nice small flowers

Corydalis lutea - small plant, look excellent against an evergreen background, I think

Anemonella thalictroides - Rue Anemone - this is a native plant that I think is horribly underutilized. I had it planted all around my house in southwestern Ohio (rescues from bulldozers) - I had these guys blooming from early April through as late as mid-June and as long as the soil stayed consistently moist their foliage looked great until fall.

Hope this helps

~Mike

Ajugas (especially 'Chocolate Chip'), Dianthus, Sempervivens (Hens and Chicks--many types available), maybe punctuate with one or two architectural, narrow plants like Eryngium yuccifolium (Rattlesnake Master)--Plant Delights has an especially nice cultivar--'Kershaw Blue'. Also plant lots of small bulbs (but not Muscari)espcially Crocus, Puschkinia, and Narcissus 'Hawera' a small, multiflowered daff with grass-like foliage that quickly disappears.

Corydalis lutea, while a great plant in the right place, gets quite large-2 1/2 x 2 1/2--and seeds prolifically.

Thanks for your quick responses. Mike - the bed is in full sun, the plants you suggested would work well in a partial shaded bed, but in this situation they would fry away.
Lacyvail - I think your suggestions are along the lines I had been thinking. Somehow spring with it's multitude of small bulbs and small perennials like Pulsatilla seem to be the easiest.
The bed in question is actually quite nice, since it is off the ground it invites close inspection for smaller plants and seems perfect for smaller treasures that would get lost in a regular bed with perennials and shrubs. I think I just found my winter project...finding the right plants for this bed...lol
Thanks again.
Marc

* Platycodon (balloon flower) "Sentimental Blue": A true dwarf yet has good-sized flowers - it's a great "tuck in" plant.

* Liriope: For a grassy effect - liriope can take full sun with ease and stays nice and low, available in variegated form

* Bloodgrass: Another shorter grassy plant, the red tips are lovely and would play nicely off the Japanese maple you're planning.

* "Biokovo" geranium: Another great groundcover, always looks handsome, and the foliage is scented (smells like Vernors to me)

* Coral bells "Plum Pudding": This one seems to take sun very well with no fading, and would be a nice color contrast

* Bergenia: I love bergenia with red laceleaf Japanese maples! The reddish edges of the bergenia play beautifully off the Japanese maple, and the contrast between the lacey leaves and the cabbage-like leaves of the bergenia is striking.

* Ornamental strawberry (fragaria - ? spelling): Lovely groundcover, foliage is very attractive, and tiny white flowers appear all summer next to ripening small red fruit (which are edible). I have the *non-running* type, they expand to form low, lush clumps.

* Mums: For fall effect, mums are great, and if pinched stay low, very attractive foliage all season.

* Ajania: Another fall bloomer, outstanding variegated foliage.

Ah well...I thought the bed was partially shaded...my bad. Dicentra eximia can be grown in full sun in the right soils though. I have seen wild D. eximia growing in the middle of rock outcroppings in full sun in the mountains of Virginia/West Virginia. C. lutea certainly does reseed itself, although I have never have seen a C. lutea anywhere near 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 feet though, lol.

In that case, Gentians and Amsonia montana 'Short Stack' could be some more nice choices for your bed....

~Mike

Suggestion: gaillardia Arizona Sun is a great dwarf with months of blooms -- four to five in my area, blue fescue is a nice contrast to gaillardia. Enjoy.

Tunic flower is one I haven't seen mentioned yet. Low growing, fine feathery foliage with pink baby's breath like flowers. In my zone 4 garden it starts blooming in mid June and was still going until mid October when a hard freeze finally stopped it. It can be a little difficult to find, Bluestone Perennials carries it.

Three more: alchemilla mollis, veronica Goodness Grows, and Geranium Rozanne. Rozanne and the veronica started blooming for me in early May and today, 11/19, they are both still in bloom. Rozanne is covered with bloom; GG is still poking up a few spikes. All of these grow very close to the ground. Rozanne's stems get very long, but they sprawl, weaving in and arund other flowers, which looks great.

Wow, you guys are great! I like most of the suggestions you made so far, a few that I think may not fit the looks of the Midwest "Alpine/Rock Garden", but most will do. I was not familiar with Tunic flower, but it looks and sounds great, a definite on my Bluestone shopping list.

How about Penstemon pinifolius 'Compactum'? 12" H x 10" W
For mat forming, Delosperma (Iceplant), or any of the ground cover sedums. Geums are also fairly compact, and will handle full sun. They aren't a typical rock garden plant, but you said your soil was somewhat moisture retentive. You could also use miniature daylillies for the grasslike foliage.

How about some before and after pics?

Bonnie

You might want to read Elizabeth Lawrence's book "A Rock Garden in the South. Some of the plants mentioned could be too tender for Indiana but many are not and they will stand heat and sun.

And along with the previous response, the December/January issue of Horticulture magazine has an excellent article on rock gardens and rock/alpine plants. One of the primary characteristics of many alpine and rock garden plants is a requirement for very good drainage, which those growing situations tend to provide. Plants like Dianthus, Armeria, Aubrieta, Aurinia, saxifrages, erodiums, stonecrops and a whole host of lesser bulbs and species tulips thrive under these open, exposed and freely draining conditions. The article should provide many other plant choices as well as provide design ideas.

what about cultivars of clematis integrifolia? These herbaceous forms are sprawlers not climbers. My particular favorite is 'Haukuree', a white flowered culitvar that has a long bloom season.

My small gravel bed (8 ft X 8 ft) was made from a former raised vegetable garden on a slope in the backyard. Somewhere from about one third to one half of the rich soil was removed and replaced with rough gravel. The front side is only about 8 inches deep and the rear is 16 inches. I use it for smallish plants that would not otherwise be possible for me to grow in my heavy wet clay soil. Not all the plants in the pictures still exist as I change the plants frequently whenever I want to try something else. (It's a very small space!) I also use it as a holding bed sometimes for expensive new plants. There is a long succession of blooms and colors, with the color scheme sometimes making no sense at all as I move things in and out...

Here you can see sea thrift (Armeria maritima 'Splendens') and candytuft (Iberis sempervirens 'Snowflake') with Fanfare gaillardia, a new plant which bloomed all that summer, never returned, but left me with an assortment of various colored gaillardas in the bed. The soft looking foliage plant to the right is a santolina and the attractive leaves in the upper right belong to a geum. The sea thrift was removed later on because it quadrupled in size.

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Here it is a bit later in spring. The pink flower in the front is a soapwort, one of my favorites. I posted a close-up later on. You can also see some penstemons starting up (Husker's Red). The tuteur behind it is only 3 feet tall and has been used for small clematis and more recently for various annual vines.
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Another view.
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Lychnis flos-jovis, Gaillardia x grandiflora 'Summer's Kiss' (another non-returner, but lovely) and Snow-in Summer (Cerastium tomentosum 'Silberteppich' Silver Carpet)
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Lavender Cotton (Santolina chamae-cyparissus) and Golden Marguerite (Anthemis hybrida (x) 'E. C. Buxton') in bloom in early summer.
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Siberian Iris are the tallest plants in this bed, except for Husker's Red when it is in bloom (used mostly for the reddish foliage here) and two large Russian sages (Perovskia), which are very out of proportion for the bed, but the only place I can grow it, and are impressive in size in late summer when not much else is going on here, except for the few annuals in the bed.

For whatever reason the Siberians like this so-called "dry" bed than in my regular garden, no idea why! The clumps are now much larger than the pictures show and take up a lot of space. Not sure what I'll do. Gardening can be a bit confusing sometimes. LOL.

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There are also three varieties of Dwarf Bearded Iris (Iris nain). This one is called Grape Orbit.

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Penstemon Alba is a pretty little plant that does well here too.

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The only place I can grow lavender. This is Lavender angustifolia 'Sarah'.
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Close-up of Rock soapwort, Saponaria ocymoides. Just love this one. Also have (not pictured) some Mossy Saxifrage (Saxifraga Purple Carpet) and Lewisia Purple Plum (very tiny plants) next to soapwort.
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Two of the corners are draped with Basket-of-Gold, Aurinia saxatilis 'Goldkugel' (Gold Ball)
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and the others with candytuft. The candytuft, santolina, and aurinia can all be cut back hard after bloom (before bloom usually for the santolina) and act as sort of a tiny mixed hedge for the bed.
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Baby Sun and Tequila Sunrise Coreopsis. The variegated Tequila will probably have to be removed soon, since it is getting quite big here, but Baby works well. Note the daylily foliage. There are currently four smallish daylilies in this bed (these were originally one-fan starts and will get a new home elsewhere next year). However, they do provide some mid-summer color in a bed of many spring flowers, so I may leave a part of each one here.
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Another high-summer picture. Echinaceas don't like my wet clay much so the expensive new ones reside here. This is Sundown, with Profusion series Apricot zinnias, Veronica Royal Candles, and Elijah Blue Fescue grass.

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The season actually starts out with these perennialized (six years and going strong) tulips. I carefully plant a few annuals behind them and place a small round pot with annuals in front of this space for summer.

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Those are great pictures. Thanks so much for posting them, it brightens my gray November day. You also have some very nice close up examples of smaller plants that I will have to keep in mind.

For some different colour foliage, try Campanula Dickson's Gold and Heuchera Peach Flambe. I love these together.

Another plant that I really like in a small space is Hemerocallis Pennysworth. It has small grass like foliage and small yellow blooms.

For a really nice low growing mat, I like Geranium Max Frei -- gorgeous magenta blooms.

And for something a bit exotic, try Peony tenuifolia -- very small with fernlike foliage.

Great pictures, Leslie, and great suggestions for plants. I can't believe how well your tulips look, in their sixth (!) year. Wow! I will them to my list as well.

I second tunic flower - Petrorhagia saxifraga, also called Tunica saxifraga (can't remeber which is the new/old name). No idea why it isn't more widely used - the mist of color it provides and the lovely, bright, fine foliage earlier, are really great. Sea thrift (armeria maritima) really does bloom for a long time, I would definitely include it. I like it with the silver-foliaged dianthus, which provide a nice echo/contrast with similar leaf shape but different color and form.

For researching heaths and heathers, you should probably start at the Rock Spray nursery web site. Be sure to include winter-blooming heaths - some of mine are just starting to bloom and they will be the main attraction that gets me through the winter, for the next 4 months. The trick with planting winter flowering things is to site them where they will be seen from the house or from points along the shortest route from the car to the house, since we don't do much exploring of the further corners of the garden in winter.

Also, don't forget to include some spiked or bold-leaved plants; a bed of mat-forming, fine textured plants can easily become boring. I love the bergenia suggestion just for that reason.