Plant Gardens 101

Once you choose the site of your rock garden, select the rocks you want to use and have the soil prepared, you are ready to start construction. The first question you might as is when is the best time of year to make a rock garden? The rocks and soil may be handled at any time except when the ground is frozen, but the summer months offer the longest period of freedom from planting rush, and then the soil is dry and easily handled.

Then there will be autumn rains to make the soil firm and winter frost to settle the rocks and planting can best be done the following spring. The first thing you need to do is to dig off the existing topsoil (the first foot of earth) and remove the roots of all weeds and grasses. Much of this soil may be used in backfilling if all roots are sifted out. On this base the large bulky rocks should be laid, each packed around with soil, well rammed, and topped by several chinker stones, large water features, outdoor fountains, or garden statuary before the next are put into place.

As the program for procedure has already been arranged, the work of laying up the rocks can proceed. Now is the time to worry over the details of the outline of the structure. You may have decided the general shape of the area in advance and may even have a plan at hand to give the principal elevations and major masses. However, you must decide the details of the shape of each crag and ravine as the rock garden is being constructed. (more…)

To make your rock garden pleasing to the eye, you should seek out the greatest variety of plants. At the same time, you have to look at keeping a unified but not uniform effect. It is possible to make the planting too wild and unkempt, but more often a rock garden looks entirely too much dressed and too well tended to represent the moods of nature. There is a certain unity and plan in the arrangement of the wild flowers of the fields, and this intangible scheme should be your guide in planning the placing.

With all this striving for variety in unity, it is a good idea to keep the flower masses of the same date of bloom somewhat apart, getting fewer of the flower combinations than is planned for a flower border. The requirements of finished pictorial composition are less desired here, the effect being decidedly more toward the very uneven and picturesque, with the tenets of the art of manmade pictures as little in evidence as possible. (more…)

Watering a Rock Garden

Watering a rock garden is a matter of the utmost importance, which nevertheless is scarcely mentioned in rock garden literature. InEngland, of course, this is not so vital a matter as with us. With less sun, more rain, and more moisture in the air, rock garden plants, especially alpines, are as apt to suffer from excessive moisture there as they are from lack of it here.

When speaking of the proper means of applying water, however, it is not in reference to either the watering can or a hose with the usual garden nozzle. The former takes too much time, and the latter applies water so rapidly that it will begin to run on the surface before the soil is saturated clear through.

But it is a simple matter to provide a mist like spray which will saturate the driest soil through and through without spattering mud on the smallest leaves or the most delicate blossoms, or causing the soil to run out from the most precarious rock crevices. There is a special type of greenhouse irrigation nozzle which applies the water in this fine mist like spray. (more…)

There is no set design on how to make a rock garden, you can let your creativity abound. As long as you incorporate the basics, you can design as large or as small of a rock garden as you desire. All good gardening techniques require good drainage for watering, so bear this in mind. Make sure that wherever you decide to place your garden, you have a level surface as a base. Use well-draining sand or gravel as the foundation. A quick trip to any of the large nurseries or home building suppliers will provide you with a variety of options for materials.

Decorative stone makes a lovely wall for rock garden terraces. It comes in a variety of colors and shapes, with straight or round edges. Brick and formed blocks will also work. Your garden can be a single tier, or several staggered terraces. If you are looking to build a rooftop garden, ensure that the trusses or roofing substructure will adequately support the weight. If this is not the case, perhaps several very small, scattered gardening spots would be a better choice. (more…)

In most books on rock gardening, a large part of the space is devoted to the description of plants, and of individual varieties. This is as it should be, and to those who are taking up seriously this fascinating form of gardening, the acquisition of at least one or two of these larger volumes is by all means recommended. Anyone planning a rock garden should conduct more research than simply what this article contains.

Bulbs for a Rock Garden:

To one who thinks of bulbs in terms of Darwin tulips with three-foot stems, and the modern Giant Trumpet daffodils, in the spring garden, or of gladiolus and dahlias throughout the summer months, the rock garden would seem to offer no suitable place of residence for this important group of flowers. Many “complete” catalogs of rock garden plants contain never a whisper concerning bulbs, though often including shrubs, evergreens, and garden fountains (http://www.garden-fountains.com/Detail.bok?no=1071). (more…)

A landscape created with rocks and alpine plants (small plants native to mountainous regions).

With most kinds of gardening or landscaping, the gardener may exercise a rather wide range of choices when it comes to treatment; he may make his planting formal, informal, natural, highly decorative, or more picturesque.

With a rock garden, however, formal treatment is precluded. Neither the materials used in the construction of the rock garden, nor the plants which will occupy it, lend themselves to any formal arrangement. Straight lines, regular angles or curves, the trimmed plants, statuary, fountains, and all that sort of thing are so foreign to the whole conception of the rock garden that any attempt to introduce them would appear ludicrous. A rock garden is the most natural kind of garden there is, chiefly designed to be constructed with materials that are already present. A lot of fuss is just not appropriate or necessary

One may, however, choose between a naturalistic treatment and what may be termed “the Japanese style,” the chief difference being that in the Japanese style an effort is made to reproduce a miniature landscape. This requires an excellent sense of proportion and a knowledge and use of a wide variety of plant material. The satisfactory execution of a Japanese rock garden is much more difficult than that of a rock garden which will appear satisfactorily natural looking. Unless the services of a landscape architect are available, it is better to try the simpler form first. (more…)