The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Rockweler Rockgardens

The Collection of Rock Plants. Sometimes the primary object of the gardener may be not so much a rock garden as a collection of rock plants. This, in itself, is a worth-while objective, for some of these little beauties are as readily grown as any perennials, and others are captivating because of the various difficulties involved in successfully growing them. They are as well worth while as any other class of plants for their own merits and quite aside from their use as material for making a rock garden.

Often the beginner starts out with no clear idea as to whether his object is to grow rock plants or to create a real rock garden. This is one of the things which should be determined early. If you merely want to grow rock plants, stones may be used as a means for supplying suitable growing conditions. Or, for that matter, many of the rock plants, and even some of the alpines, may be grown perfectly well, especially in a slightly raised bed, without any rock anywhere in the vicinity.

Rock Gardens Versus Rockeries. While we are on this subject it may be worth while to call attention to another form of pseudo rock gardening. This is the pile of rocks, sometimes carefully built up, sometimes loosely thrown together with soil put over them, which is usually called a "rockery." Such a pile of earth and stone may serve as a support for vines, such as English ivy, to scramble over, or for some of the dry-soil annuals or perennials, such as portulaca or Iceland poppies, but is in no sense a rock garden, not even a miniature edition of one. For the whole design and purpose of a rock garden is to save and conserve the moisture in the soil well below the surface, so that the far-reaching roots of rock and alpine plants may utilize it, even though they seem to be growing in absolutely dry soil. The rockery, on the other hand, is an ideal structure for not saving moisture. When the spring rains are over, it will quickly dry out clear to the center, and only by repeated dTenchings, which would be fatal to many rock plants and alpines, can it be kept at all moist.

Character of Design. With most kinds of gardening or landscaping, the gardener may exercise a rather wide range of choice as to treatment; that is, he may make his planting along formal, informal or naturalistic Japanesque, or picturesque, lines.

With the 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 hat sort of thing are so foreign to the whole conception of the rock garden that any attempt to introduce them would appear ludicrous.