Alpine Plants for Colorful Ground Cover in Rock Gardens

Think of alpine plants and a sweeping, colorful picture of a mountain scene might spring to mind but by keeping closer to home, alpine plants are not only for growing in the Alps they are grown in rock gardens and as colorful ground cover in every temperate garden region.

What is an Alpine Plant?

Alpine plants are basically low growing or dwarf plants that are particularly suitable for growing in difficult to care for areas. They are also suitable for growing in raised beds and patio tubs. Alpine or rock plants are robust and tolerant of drought, wind, heat and even shade. Some of these alpine plants enjoy moist conditions while others like arid areas with good drainage. Some alpine plants like lime-free soil and some like a peat based soil.

Creating a Rock Garden

Not every garden can be blessed with natural rock faces and accommodating crevices with ideal drainage for growing alpine plants but every gardener can create a rock garden. This is easily done but must not be confused with the decades old dumping ground where all kinds of debris had been lodged through the years. A rock garden can be created anywhere by following a few simple steps

• Do not use builder’s rubble consisting of half bricks and ugly chunks of cement.

• Use different size natural stones. Sometimes these can be bought in garden centers or coaxed from the clutches of local farmers.

• As an alternative use home-made stones. These can be made by mixing concrete and coarse gravel into a sloppy mess and filing plastic bags with the mixture. Allow the mixture to dry in any haphazard form and the end result will be a mix of peculiar shaped personal rocks.

• For drainage use coarse gravel and always use a good top-soil for getting things off to a good start.

• Build the rock garden in layers, creating a natural slope and effect. Do not leave all the rocks on the surface, bury some and over time these will be discovered by the plants and natural erosion.

• Designing homemade rocks can be fun and by using a plastic Halloween face mask ghoulish faces can end up peeking through some favorite alpine plants.

Favorite Alpine Plants for Rock Gardens

In many garden centers alpine plants will probably be found under the Rock Plant sign and some good choices are:

• ‚”Genista hispanica, Spanish Gorse“, is a fully hardy compact shrub. It likes full sun and produces masses of vivacious yellow blooms in April and May. It will spread to about 1.5m and will need to be kept in check with Fall/Autumn pruning.

• ‚”Armeria maritima” is a group of hardy alpine plants which will grow in the least amount of soil available and will give endless color to a rock garden. These rock plants can grow from 20cm up to 80cm and are available in various shades of pink, white and blue. Look for ‚”Armeria maritima Splendens Perfecta” and ‚”Armeria maritima Alba“. They are often called Thrift plants.

• ‚”Helianthemum” is another genus of rock plants offering a vast range of colors, pink, white, yellow and red. Helianthemum is an evergreen woody shrub and is frost hardy. This alpine plant is at home in an alkaline soil.

• ‚”Alpine Heather” available in red or white is a favorite in a moist area. Heathers always look so delicate but are in fact hardy and will tolerate many different conditions. They look very well when grown with ‚”Alpine Buttercup“. Both plants enjoy the same conditions.

Maintaining a rock garden is the easiest of all garden chores. For easy access place some ‘foothold’ stones at strategic places to allow for subsequent annual maintenance and then simply allow the plants to grow and mingle with each other to create a mass of contrasting colors. Even though rock plants tend to be dwarf in nature always endeavor to vary the height levels to create an interesting, undulating sea of color.

Of course rock gardens need not be confined to just alpine plants. Climbing roses can add an old world charm to rock gardens while a succulent plant such as Adenium can give a profusion of pink and red color to all rock gardens.