plants for a sunny, hot raised bed

Rock gardens are a great place to grow sun and heat-loving plants.  The rocks retain a lot of heat, keeping the soil warmer at night, allowing some plants to grow here that wouldn't grow in a regular garden in Calgary.

However, too much rock and not enough soil means a super hot, super dry garden where it is tough to get things to grow.  Like this one.  There is currently a coreopsis and a little patch of snow-in-summer surviving, and surprisingly a monkshood, plus a few poppies and creeping sedums recently put in.

I suggest filling it in with a variety of heights of plants around the bottom, and some spillers on the top (soil pockets not visible in this picture).  Obviously, all plants must be sun and heat tolerant.  Here are some perennial possibilities:

• creeping sedums of a variety of flower and leaf colour and variegations
• hens and chicks
• thymus (ornamental thymes of a variety of flower colours, textures and scents)
• satureja reptans (creeping savory)
• dwarf iris germanica
• achillea millefolium (yarrow, various flower colours)
• gaillardia (blanket flower) 
• lamb's ears 'Silver Carpet' (non-flowering variety)
• gypsophilia paniculata (baby's breath)
• nepeta (catmint) 'Walker's Low'
• artemesia 'Silver Mound' and 'Lambrook Silver'

And because they like the heat so much that replanting them every year would be worth it, these annuals could go in as well:

• portulaca, various colours
• verbena, various colours
• trailing nasturtiums

One important thing will be to water all the newly planted perennials daily for a few weeks.  They are only drought and heat-tolerant once they are established.