There is an article on today's Independent - Rock around the plot! It's the latest gardening craze - which suggests that the once popular, but more recently despised, rockery, might about to make a comeback.
I remember once going to a quarry in Devon and selecting a lorry load of feature stones for a garden we were creating. Every single one had to be moved by 3 tonne digger because they were so large.
We created many smaller gardens using featured stones but I never really considered them rockeries.
All that might change.....what are your thoughts on bringing back rockeries as a deliberately designed garden feature?
"From the Independent - Rock around the plot! It's the latest gardening craze: In the 1970s, it was the cornerstone of the suburban garden, as common as pampas grass. But by the end of the century, the rockery had plunged from the height of fashion to naffness, with stones and dainty alpines replaced by decking, olive trees and bamboo.
"Now, perhaps because of our shrinking outside space and straitened times, the rock garden is on the verge of a revival. The Chelsea Fringe festival next month will feature a rockery as the centrepiece of one of its gardens, while membership of the Alpine Garden Society, a haven for collectors of rockery plants, is rising. Rockeries have also received the Gardeners' World endorsement, with Monty Don creating a miniature alpine garden on the show last week."
Continue reading Rock around the plot! It's the latest gardening craze
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I'm wondering how many members have ever created a 'real' rockery. Back when I first started landscaping (in the early 70's) as the article says, 'rockeries were the cornerstone of the suburban garden' - and we created any number! Large, small or medium.
Only the best would do - handpicked, weather-worn, moss covered, Westmorland Stone - straight from the moors. Making sure the rocks 'sit right', horizontally, tilting slightly back and each one 'doing a job' - not just placed on a pile of soil! It could be back breaking, but satisfying.
All has changed now of course and I cringe at times when I think of how much beautiful stone has been re-sited in the Home Counties. Would I be happy with quarried stone? Not sure I would, having used 'the real thing'. Would I want to lug 2 and 3 cwt lumps of rock around again? Probably not, not now, I'll leave it to the new generation of 'Rockery Builders'
Who can ever forget the words of the immortal Arthur Daley "....a pond's just an 'ole in the ground and a rockery, it’s just the opposite'!
I really hope they are making a comeback, though I'm not too keen on the new crevice types - I thought the one at Wisley looked quite hideous earlier this year. I can imagine the big rock gardens are a real head-ache to put together and large creations with massive stones are frowned upon from an environmental point of view - Graham Stuart Thomas in his book on National Trust gardens said, “One cannot make the beautiful water-worn limestone of Cumbria look really at home in, say, Cambridgeshire or Sussex." But I disagree - I think they're works of art in themselves. You might as well say all exotics should be banned because they're not in keeping with the surrounding nature.
As far as resiting beautiful stone is concerned, Colin, I think I'd argue that it was probably dumped in Westmorland by a glacier anyway, and I'd rather see it somewhere like, say, Wisley's original rockgarden than have to traipse across moors to find it. In fact, arguably far more people have admired and appreciated the stones in the large public rock gardens than would in their original setting.
Finally, (in an act of shameless self-promotion) if you're interested in the history of rock gardens, there's an article on the Garden World website http://www.gardenworld.co.uk/rolling-out-the-rock-gardens-by-helen-....
You really cant trust those glaciers, they just turn up every few hundred thousand years, then just disappear - leaving others to clear up behind them!
Helen Gazeley said:
Hee, hee! So true!
Colin Hunt said:
I'm not too keen on rockeries but a lot depends on the skill of the builder and the sensitivity of its design.
Living where there is a lot of naturally occurring stone I tend to enjoy seeing plants like Sempervirens and Sedum, for example, planted into cracks and holes of walls rather than full blown rock features.
Helen Gazeley said:
Phil, I do agree. There's always the danger of dogs' graveyards and almond puddings, as rock garden guru Reginald Farrer described some of the worst designs. Lovely to have natural rock in your own garden.
" Lovely to have natural rock in your own garden."
I can go one better Helen...I've got it in my kitchen:-)
Of course, I'd forgotten! Nothing like building on firm foundations.