Creating And Planting Alpine Gardens: How To Build Small Rock Gardens And Work With Alpine Plants

Creating and Planting Alpine Gardens tells how to create an alpine garden in a relatively small space.The reader will benefit from author Rex Murfitt's presentation of time-tested ways of achieving success with alpines in North American growing conditions. He begins his book with descriptions of alpine sites and ways of handling rocks and building small gardens, and continues with information on growing alpines in troughs and tufa rock, other containers, raised beds, and alpine houses. His informed, opinionated discourse on suggested plants is a treat and an inspiration.By manipulating soil types, exposures, and rock structures, lowland gardeners can grow gemlike, ground-hugging plants from alpine regions of the world. Alpine plants evolved on high, windy sites with extreme climates and are difficult to grow in locations with hot summers and rich, moist soil. To show their true beauty, even to survive at all, they need excellent drainage, good light, protected rock crevices, and a lean and gritty soil. Growing these elegant plants is challenging and rewarding — ideal for serious gardeners with limited growing space.Creating and Planting Alpine Gardens is intended for gardeners who enjoy a challenge and are interested in creating the special conditions required by alpine plants. Chapters Include: Beginning an Alpine Garden The Nature of Rocks Building a Rock Garden Building Raised Beds Soil and Topdressing Alpine Plants in Containers Rock Gardens Under Glass Plant Talk Herbaceous and Semi-Woody Plants Small Bulbs Dwarf Trees and Shrubs

Rex Murfitt trained in his native England and worked there with the Ingwersens and other famous rock gardeners. He is the 2002 recipient of the Carleton R. Worth Award from the North American Rock Garden Society, for distinguished writing about rock gardening. He coauthored the book, Creating and Planting Garden Troughs, with Joyce Fingerut. Their book received a Book of the Year 2000 award from the American Horticultural Society.