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American Rock Garden:
Martha Houghton, at the first meeting of the American Rock Garden society, 1934.
tfy first visit to a true alpine garden was in the spring of 1977 vhen I met Budd Myers and had the rare opportunity of touring his lillside domain in northeast Pennsylvania, on the fringes of the 3ocono Mountains. I had seen pictures of other such gardens before nit they always looked like a technicolor world with brilliant dots of ntense but unreal tinting and a great deal of cunningly placed rock, lence the other name for such plant collections: rock gardens.I compromised by setting the flower in the rock garden during the day and moving it to the Garage at night. This did cause a bit of a problem in the morning necessitated by opening the door and all that such an act implies. Visitors to the garden did not know quite what to say about the giant maroon and leathery appurtenance set amid the blooming plants of the rock garden so they avoided all mention, which is fairly hard to do with a plant now 4 feet high and surmounted by buzzing flies.
THEY ARE immensely varied in character, some being tiny shrubs, some herbaceous plants, others bulbs, corms, or tubers. Though the majority enjoy open sunny places and well-drained soils, suitable rock plants can be found for almost any situation in the garden, including those that are moist and shady. The fact that rock plants have developed from wild plants brought from many different lands accounts for their fascination with collectors, who can grow a wide variety of plants with different origins in a small area. It is not essential to have a rock garden in order to grow rock-garden plants. Many will grow just as well in ordinary beds, provided the soil is suitable and they are not overrun by larger plants. Dry walls and raised beds are also satisfactory substitutes for rock gardens and may fit more appropriately into the design of small gardens, including even those of formal design.
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