June 05, 2026

Seems like every Colorado garden I visit has a few of these pots — rugged, stone-like troughs in shades of gray or pinkish red, some horizontally ridged like sedimentary layers. When I ask, the gardener inevitably says, “Oh, Domenique Turnbull makes those.” Tightly packed with mountain-evoking rocks and tiny alpine plants or succulents, they’ve come to epitomize the Colorado aesthetic for me.

Naturally, I decided I had to have some for myself.

So me being me, I invited myself to Domenique’s garden, and he graciously agreed. Cue up a Front Range road trip to Green Mountain Falls, about two hours south of Denver.

Tufa troughs

Domenique is a master of hypertufa. For years he crafted pots to sell at garden events and plant sales across the state. Rock gardeners and crevice gardeners snapped them up. Not only is hypertufa winter hardy and evocative of the Rockies, it’s also perfect for plants that need sharp drainage. (If you don’t know about hypertufa — I didn’t really either — here’s one plant expert’s review of a book about hypertufa gardening.)

But the days of toting tufa pots to events is over, Domenique told me. In fact, he only has a few remaining troughs to sell off. Boy, was I glad to get there before they’re all gone! I bought the big dark-gray one pictured above, as well as several smaller ones in different shapes. They’ll be the first part of my new garden.

A handful of big ones remain.

And now let’s tour Domenique’s garden, which is tucked against a green mountainside and absolutely packed with crevice gardens.

Czech-style crevice garden

I counted at least 7 crevice gardens around Domenique’s red-frame house, each built from a distinct type of stone. This one he calls his Czech-style crevice garden, with tightly spaced stones. Creeping and mounding plants keep the profile low, and flowers were abundant at the end of May.

Tufa tower

Nearby, a tufa tower — Domenique calls it a tufa wall — steals the scene.

The 6-foot-tall tower of tufa rock makes a cliff-like home to alpine plants, including a small pine perched on top.

There’s no soil. Domenique drills pocket-sized holes in the rock and tucks in tiny plants.

Bent pieces of chicken wire protect new plants from birds until they’ve anchored themselves in the rock.

Because there’s no soil, plants must be watered daily — a detail that surprised me. Domenique uses an irrigation system to automate a daily spritz.

Gardening in bare rock is an impressive skill.

Red rock crevice garden

Between the street and a greenhouse, a red rock crevice garden is studded with green cushions and spiny cactus.

Indian paintbrush reminded me of a Texas spring, while pink-flowering pussytoes was new to me.

Newest crevice garden

A brand-new crevice garden, with a path curving into the center, is newly planted and still mostly rock to my inexperienced eyes. But the rocks are impressive, with several blocky boulders that must have been challenging to site.

On one side, a tufa trough contains briquette-like chunks of stone. Domenique is a rock hound as much as a gardener, I think.

The rocks look like mountain ranges in miniature, or lava fields.

More troughs

Around the back of the house, the foundation is lined with troughs of cactus. Notice how Domenique artfully elevates some of his troughs to create a staggered display.

The biggest one is as long as a loveseat, with a weathered old tree trunk cemented in.

Gray stone crevice garden

Nearby, a pink speckled boulder leads the eye to a gently rolling crevice garden.

It’s a biggie, made of gray rounded stone — almost like a riverbed.

Fresh green foliage was springing up in the cracks. Aside from the artistry of the rocks and plants, I didn’t notice any art in Domenique’s garden — with the notable exception of bird art here and there.

Domenique said he felt birds are a natural fit with the garden. I agree.

Daphne was scenting the garden with its sweet fragrance.

Purple bellflower looking pretty against gray rock

Pine tree candles

Oldest crevice garden

His oldest crevice garden rambles along the road, with the mountain slope as backdrop.

I love this weeping Norway spruce — a shaggy Cousin Itt — which Domenique is training to crawl along an upright boulder.

Broken concrete crevice garden

Another crevice garden is made of broken pieces of concrete, aka urbanite.

As Domenique pointed out, recycling old concrete like this saves material from going to the landfill, and it works as well as rock.

More of his planters

Trough garden

The showiest of his trough gardens sits at the end of the driveway — a big collection of tufa planters, each its own ecosystem of rocks and plants.

I love how the mountain landscape is brought down to human scale with the crevice planters.

Crevice planter with bird

A broken pot tilted on its side shows off striated rock and crevice-loving plants.

This red trough has a wall at the back corner, offering vertical planting space.

Pipes and concrete slabs elevate the troughs in a pleasing display, and they keep the hypertufa from freezing to the ground in winter, which can damage it.

Another pretty trough with spring flowers

Bird and rock

Moss crevice planter

I’ll leave you with a moss crevice planter basking in the occasional over-splash of a rock fountain.

What fun it was to see how Domenique has turned a passion for tufa troughs, alpine plants, and crevice gardening into a landscape that blends so well with his mountain home.

To learn more about Domenique’s garden, watch this video tour I found online.

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Digging Deeper

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