I spent part of the day weeding out an old rock garden by the side of the stone staircase that leads down to the terrace by our summer cottage.\u00a0 Grass from the small adjoining lawn had invaded the rockery, almost obliterating it.\u00a0 As I dug out the stubborn tufts of grass, exposed spots ripe for planting, I dreamed about what I would do if I had more time to install and tend the rock garden.<\/p>\n
The situation is mostly sunny with a little dappled shade from the high branches of nearby trees.\u00a0 The sloping bed contains rocks of varying sizes, interspersed with soil pockets.\u00a0 Drainage is good–sometimes too good.\u00a0 In short, the old rockery is crying for some alpine plants.<\/p>\n
My time at this place where I have stayed every summer of my life is limited to a total of a few weeks a year.\u00a0 Plants that succeed in the various garden beds here have to take care of themselves.\u00a0 Still…that is what alpine plants have adapted themselves to do.\u00a0 I can easily imagine some lewisias, with their rosettes of leaves and bright, daisy-like flowers.\u00a0 Small alpine cranesbill varieties, whose hardy geranium relatives do well on other parts of the property, are a possibility as well.<\/p>\n
Winter will give me time to do more research on the topic.\u00a0 Next spring I will get started.\u00a0 The old rock garden deserves a new life.<\/p>\n
For further information on rock gardening, go to the North American Rock Garden Society’s website, http:\/\/www.nargs.org.\u00a0 A good source for rock garden plants is Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery at http:\/\/www.siskiyourareplantnursery.com.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I spent part of the day weeding out an old rock garden by the side of the stone staircase that leads down to the terrace by our summer cottage.\u00a0 Grass from the small adjoining lawn had invaded the rockery, almost obliterating it.\u00a0 As I dug out the stubborn tufts of grass, exposed spots ripe for … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[230,122,231,229,232],"class_list":["post-504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-summer","tag-alpine-plants","tag-hardy-geranium","tag-lewisia","tag-rock-gardens","tag-rockery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":505,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions\/505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}