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How to Create Clay Crevices in Rock Gardens from Esther Wrightman on Vimeo.

 

This is the the movie clip that was embedded in my presentation which many you may have seen in the last year at various rock garden society meetings. It illustrates how to make a clay crevice within your garden for alpine plants - in this case I am using a split tufa rock.

For…

One of the best "trends" to hit mainstream gardening is container planting - trough gardening for most of us. Adaptable and accessible to most any situation, troughs can be used as accents to an alpine garden or perennial garden; or, they can be the sole feature with a varied number of sub-themes. Each container represents its own particular ecological/horticultural expression. Using…

In early April, Josef Halda stayed with us, putting the finishing touches to the lectures he brought for his NARGS North American tour. I have always admired the vertical, cleft formations that are so often seen in Czech trough and alpine gardens and imagined that they must be painstakingly constructed and slow to mature. Regardless, I was interested in knowing the process, and having…

As temperatures plunge and light fails in October, we move a great assortment of potted plants from the outdoor frames into the greenhouse. They are mostly stock plants from which we take a lot of our winter cuttings. Others are rare or sensitive plants - some in pots, some in stone troughs - that aren't yet put to the ultimate trial of "open garden" planting. Having grown accustomed…