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Gardeners always seem to enjoy sharing their sometimes hard-won information and this issue is not only an important one for those new to rock gardening but something of a celebration of the impulse of master gardeners to share what they know. It includes more than forty colour photographs, gardening tips, information about the annual NARGS seed exchange and four features of particular interest to those new to rock and alpine gardening but also useful for more experienced readers. We move from the story of a private gardener utilising what she's learning in the making of other gardens in the creation of a new rock garden to surround her new home, to the making of a public canyon of a rock garden in one of the United States' newest botanical gardens. Readers inspired by these features will be glad of two complementary articles to further direct their explorations, a database of plants appropriate for rock and alpine gardens and an anecdotal listing of 100 favourite plants suitable for beginners (many of which are also must-have plants for established rock gardens).
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A New
Garden: Starting from Scratch "A new garden is like a blank canvas. Anything is possible, and everything depends on you." Gwen Kelaidis leads readers through the process of planning and making a garden six times larger than that which she left, her "magnum opus." Gwen was led to alpine gardening in part because she wanted to grow as many different plants as she could in her former, smaller garden and it's infectious to read of her excitement as "everything was brought into question, and it was a new world of gardening." Written with a sense of warmth, the question and answer format deals with questions faced by any gardener in a new site and by any private gardener with a vision of boulders surrounded by tiny plants.
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Hudson
Gardens: The New Rock Garden Canyon Hudson Gardens in Colorado opened to the public on June 16, 1996 as a botanical garden intending to "be a showpiece of horticultural art featuring the best plants and plantings to inspire and educate its visitors." The Rock Garden Canyon is still in the process of being constructed with over 250 tons of native "ruby rock" boulders. Andrew Pierce tells the story of making a garden with plantings of nearly 10,000 donated alpines, enough plants and enough rockwork to make possible "the unheard-of luxury of combining alpines in colour combinations - much as perennial borders are conceived."
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Rock
Garden Plants: A Beginner's List A project which began in the early 1980s, the genesis of the plant database of the Denver Botanic Gardens was the need to supply correct information quickly to the volunteer sales-persons and customers at their annual plant sale. NARGS members as well as DBG staff and volunteers, notably author Rob Proctor, worked together over more than a decade to expand and refine the database and publish it in booklet form for distribution. This republished section of the database is comprised of plants that grow 12" and under and are suitable for rock gardens. Rock gardeners will find it a useful resource when visiting nurseries or touring gardens as it deftly manages to include all pertinent information as well as keynotes for each plant. It includes superb photographs of some of the included plants, both the rare and not-so-rare, by Panayoti Kelaidis, Randy Tatroe and Sandy Snyder.
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The First
One Hundred: Recommended Plants for Beginners Taken from the book, A Gardener Obsessed, and modified for publication as an essay, this article splendidly builds on the keynotes of the database, directing the beginning rock gardener to a wide range of plants for sun and shade, that will be successful enough to build confidence, interesting enough to maintain enthusiasm and, most importantly, available to gardeners across the continent. Geoffrey Charlesworth begins by asking many of the questions that arise for new rock gardeners (the answer to all of them is no) and personably describes plants he has grown and propagated for years. "It is not a comprehensive list for beginners," he writes, "I am recommending plants that I would recommend to a friend who was just starting out and wanted advice to follow or ignore." Includes notes on mail order nurseries, tips on what to do with plants when they arrive and suggestions for those wishing to start a specialty nursery.
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The cover of this issue of the Rock Garden Quarterly features a Paul Martin watercolour of Silene acaulis growing in its native habitat. The DGB database tells us that this plant makes an "incredibly tight-knit bun" of bright green leaves and excels in trough gardens.
Fall
1996 Issue
Spring
1996 Issue