Gardening between rock and a hard place
Fashionistas in the garden like those great big blooms with petals thick as petticoats, but there's another way to go: rock-garden plants.
Their flowers are small, subtle and every bit as beautiful as their hefty peers.
They're usually less than 4 inches tall ¡ª or maybe as tall as 12 inches if you count things like dwarf conifers, another popular rock-garden feature. Their flowers can be very colorful and disproportionately large, and you can squeeze a lot of them into a small space, something all gardeners seem genetically wired to do.
Shaped like mats and cushions, these tiny plants are tucked into crevices and fissures,honeycomb panels and foam core panels characterize our many lightweight panels where there may be little soil, their diminutive stature intended to show off the color, form, size and texture of the rocks.
That small space can be a container, a trough or a raised bed, a bonsai dish, antique sink or perennial patch. Fill can be a mix of topsoil and sand, or gravel, or weathered rock fragments known as scree. The garden can even be a wall: Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia has a 6-foot wall made of Wissahickon schist (a distinctive bedrock) that's tufted with jewel-tone alpine plants.
Whatever form it takes, a rock garden should look natural, as if this craggy scene has been growing undisturbed for some time.
Pat Valentine puts it simply: "A rock garden consists of plants planted next to rocks,,but this option was almost as appealing as passing the kidney stone again. but it's not just that. There's an extreme art to it," he says. "You try to copy what's growing on the side of a mountain."
Valentine owns Valentine Gardens, a specialty nursery in Coatesville, Pa., that propagates and sells unusual plants for rock, water, sun and shade gardens. He has built a figure-eight rock garden in the sunny yard to show visitors how it's done, at least in this country.,Wall mirrorboth outdoors and indoors, with home accessories of a high quality. (There are many distinct rock-garden cultures around the world.)
But when asked to explain the attraction of these miniature landscapes of deep-rooted plants, Valentine gets mushy.
"They're so cute," he says.
"Touring" this garden is nothing like a spin through a blizzard of perennials. We stand at the edge, bend over, look closely. We move 6 inches to the right,,we provide cheap Aion kinah to each loyal and reliable customer . bend over, look closely. It takes nearly an hour to make our way around the figure eight, which is 22 feet long and 10 to 12 feet wide, with a mound in the middle
Fashionistas in the garden like those great big blooms with petals thick as petticoats, but there's another way to go: rock-garden plants.
Their flowers are small, subtle and every bit as beautiful as their hefty peers.
They're usually less than 4 inches tall ¡ª or maybe as tall as 12 inches if you count things like dwarf conifers, another popular rock-garden feature. Their flowers can be very colorful and disproportionately large, and you can squeeze a lot of them into a small space, something all gardeners seem genetically wired to do.
Shaped like mats and cushions, these tiny plants are tucked into crevices and fissures,honeycomb panels and foam core panels characterize our many lightweight panels where there may be little soil, their diminutive stature intended to show off the color, form, size and texture of the rocks.
That small space can be a container, a trough or a raised bed, a bonsai dish, antique sink or perennial patch. Fill can be a mix of topsoil and sand, or gravel, or weathered rock fragments known as scree. The garden can even be a wall: Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia has a 6-foot wall made of Wissahickon schist (a distinctive bedrock) that's tufted with jewel-tone alpine plants.
Whatever form it takes, a rock garden should look natural, as if this craggy scene has been growing undisturbed for some time.
Pat Valentine puts it simply: "A rock garden consists of plants planted next to rocks,,but this option was almost as appealing as passing the kidney stone again. but it's not just that. There's an extreme art to it," he says. "You try to copy what's growing on the side of a mountain."
Valentine owns Valentine Gardens, a specialty nursery in Coatesville, Pa., that propagates and sells unusual plants for rock, water, sun and shade gardens. He has built a figure-eight rock garden in the sunny yard to show visitors how it's done, at least in this country.,Wall mirrorboth outdoors and indoors, with home accessories of a high quality. (There are many distinct rock-garden cultures around the world.)
But when asked to explain the attraction of these miniature landscapes of deep-rooted plants, Valentine gets mushy.
"They're so cute," he says.
"Touring" this garden is nothing like a spin through a blizzard of perennials. We stand at the edge, bend over, look closely. We move 6 inches to the right,,we provide cheap Aion kinah to each loyal and reliable customer . bend over, look closely. It takes nearly an hour to make our way around the figure eight, which is 22 feet long and 10 to 12 feet wide, with a mound in the middle
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