Alpines by Alexander

Alpine plants are not a thing of rarity. You pass them as you walk down to the shops. You see them poking out of cracked walls or emerging from stony planters. Yet for some reason, I had always ignored their existence. Maybe it was just my familiarity to them that I had never stopped to really look at them. This all changed a couple of months ago.

A work colleague of mine saw my interest in gardening and suggested one day that we visit a place near London which would open my eyes to the wonders you could grow. With little else to do on a Tuesday off from work, we headed off to RHS Wisley.

Wisley is an amazing place. It is the gardeners equivalent of being a little kid in a sweet shop. Every type of plant you could every imagine is here, growing on acres and acres of well kept garden. Trees, shrubs, water lilies, and even giant cacti grew in this vast expanse of gardeners delight. We spent hours wandering the windy paths, through glades of apple trees and sheltered forests filled with ferns. But one thing stood out to me the most. There was two small greenhouses near the center of the site, deep within the colourful gardens and awe-inspiring herb plots. We could have easily walked straight past them, glaring at the alley flanked by ancient bonsai trees. However for whatever reason I was intrigued. 

Within these greenhouses I found some of the most interesting plants I had ever seen. Plants which looked like they had been shrunk to miniature sizes by some sort of shrink ray. Others which spread over rocky outcrops to form green living pillows. I had seen similar before: in house plant areas of various shops and thought of those as exotic plants which needed precise care and attention. Yet these grew outside around the greenhouses, thriving on the rocky walls and gravel filled container. I asked colleague eagerly about these. Evergreen plants? This beautiful and small? Which can grow in some of the harshest conditions? Why had I not noticed these before?!

Fast forward to a week ago. With a new job and a new location my mind had been elsewhere and i had nearly forgotten about what I had discovered in Wisley. Then one day I came across a stand full to the brim of alpine plants. My mind flashed back to the plants I had seen around those greenhouses. I HAD to get myself some. I spent days deliberating how I would plant them, where I would plant them, when I would plant them. Finally I formulated an idea and took the dive. I selected three of the finest and most interesting varieties I could find and hastily drove home.

I purchased a couple of terracotta pots and some compost with good drainage, and set about putting my plan to life. I grabbed a slab of stone which had been sitting in my garden for years, and carefully chiselled away chunks of it to form an aid to drainage, making sure to leave some of the rock to use later. I added the compost which had been recommended on a website, John Innes no2, and filled most of the way up. I sprinkled some Westland Garden Magic onto the soil in hopes of giving my alpines a boost, and carefully placed the plants into the pot.

After adding a bit more compost and a touch of spicing up with the remaining rock, I had created these:

In the first container I planted the alpine which first caught my eye, the Moss Campion (Silene Acaulis). What had attracted me to this was its unusual shape. It grows like moss, forming a lushous green mound, bearing a striking resemblance to the local rolling hills of Somerset. When it flowers, stems emerge and create pink flowers, as if tiny bulbs emerging from a miniature lawn.

For the second container I chose to create something similar to the containers I had seen before. I used the remains of the rock to replicate a rocky outcrop, the environment where alpines are naturally found. I wanted to use a larger chunk as a back piece to the pot to provide some height difference. I selected a Sempervivm Atlas and a Nifty Thrifty (Armeria) for this pot, aiming to get a varied selection for my pot display. The atlas caught my eye as it forms a rigid cluster of flowers, whose tips fade into red, To me it looked alien. I could imagine a gigantic version of this plant growing on some distant planet as explorers trek into the unknown.  The armeria on the other hand brings a bit of normality into the pot, with traditional shapes and colours. Although the least unusual of the three, it retains its own beauty with its pink flowers shooting up from its grass-like mound.

After a clean up and a bit of thinking, the pots were placed on the patio, soaking in the suns rays. Careful to put them in full sight of anyone entering or leaving the house, I hope that visitors will notice, allowing me to spread my appreciation of these truly stunning plants.

But this is merely an exploratory paddle into the ocean of alpines. If anyone has any tips, suggestions, or has noticed anything I may have done wrong, I would be delighted to hear from you!