A rock garden, also known as a rockery or an alpine garden, is a type of garden that features extensive use of rocks or stones, along with plants native to rocky or alpine environments.
Rock garden plants tend to be small, both because many of the species are naturally small, and so as not to cover up the rocks. They may be grown in troughs (containers), or in the ground. The plants will usually be types that prefer well-drained soil and less water.
The usual form of a rock garden is a pile of rocks, large and small, esthetically arranged, and with small gaps between, where the plants will be rooted. Some rock gardens incorporate bonsai.
A naturalistic rockery in England
Some rock gardens are designed and built to look like natural outcrops of bedrock. Stones are aligned to suggest a bedding plane and plants are often used to conceal the joints between the stones. This type of rockery was popular in Victorian times, often designed and built by professional landscape architects. The same approach is sometimes used in modern campus or commercial landscaping, but can also be applied in smaller private gardens.
The garden should be at a distance from large treesboth for the esthetic reason that trees are not usually found at the altitude of real Alpinegardens, and for the practical one that their roots absorb much of the moisture from the soil.
The general rules for an Alpinegarden are applicable here, but the pockets between the stones should point downward (which may easily be managed by careful laying of the wall) and the face of the wall should slope backward as it rises.
The "walk garden" is hardly worthy of the name of garden at a11, but may be mentioned as a charming in novation which is likely to tempt its owner to a wider acquaintance with Alpine plants.
For the purposes of this article, I wish to deal with the rockgarden that is to be built and planted by the keen cultivator of alpine plants who considers that the true home for an alpine is in the garden and not in a pot.
The practice of building a rockgarden against the garage wall, or at the foot of the garden to hide the compost heap should be discouraged.
A rockgarden should be a major feature of your garden, be it on a small or a grand scale and should not be confined to some 'out of the way' area.
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