Authors: Margery Fish
Our garden did not lend itself to a rock garden, as such, in fact I think very few gardens do. A rock garden, to be really convincing must look as if the stratas of rock were really part of the ground, and it must be on a big scale. At Forde Abbey, near Chard, a delightful rock garden winds up through high banks, with enormous rocks that look right. The rock gardens at Wisley, Kew and Edinburgh are equally generous, but unless one has a natural outcrop of rock or a very deep dell or very high bank which will accommodate really large lumps of rock, I think rock gardening should be done in less orthodox ways. There is nothing more depressing than a few stones rising self-consciously from a suburban lawn, which is almost as bad as those dreadful Victorian ‘rockeries’, which were nothing but a collection of horrible burrs or lumps of concrete huddled together in a shady, dank corner, where nothing but ferns would thrive.
With all our stones it was inevitable that my mind should turn very quickly to rock plants.
The first home for alpine treasures was expedient rather than intentional, the two rocky beds against the walls of the barton. The second was also forced upon me rather than of my own choosing. The ‘Coliseum’ came into being because we had to dig out the soil that had silted down to the west end of the house. When we first came to live here we couldn’t understand why that end of the house was always so cold and damp, with a strange vault-like smell. It was some time before we realized that about six feet of the wall outside was receiving the clammy embrace of weeping clay.
On digging out the clay we discovered the remains of an enormous fireplace behind the present chimney. This solved the problem of how to support the ground, which was several feet above the level of the foundations. On each side of the fireplace we made a series of steps from our plentiful supply of stones, hence the descriptive label.
I was instructed to plant what I could between the stones, to relieve the hard angular lines, At that time it was literally a case of making bricks without straw as I had practically nothing to use. Looking round the garden I came upon some stonecrop and pounced on it as an answer to prayer. There wasn’t very much and I broke it into small pieces and poked them between the stones. I had no idea that when it settles down in a place it not only starts raising a family but goes in for founding a dynasty as well. I think its name is
Sedum spurium
and it is the most inveterate invader I have ever met. Sometimes in the summer my heart softens when I see its really pretty flat pink rosettes, but most of the time it is war. Its round brown stems creep down walls, intertwine themselves in its classier neighbours, push under stones and across paths, taking possession with grim determination. If, by an oversight, it is allowed to stay on a piece of a flower bed for more than a minute, in two minutes that flower bed will be a solid mat of stonecrop of a particularly luxuriant quality. Every year I pull out barrowloads of it and I know I shall continue to do so until I die.
Perhaps an even greater error was the introduction of helxine, popularly called ‘Mind your own business’, why I cannot think, because that is the one thing it does not do. I had often seen it bubbling out of pots in cottage windows, and when I saw it spilling out of a broken-down greenhouse of an empty house I thought how pretty and green it was, and how nicely it would help me to soften the grim stones of the old fireplace and the Coliseum. So when a friend offered me some I accepted it with great enthusiasm. She brought it to me in a roll, like a piece of carpet, and I carefully broke it into hundreds of little pieces, tucking them in with love, and watering them with care, and looked forward to a nice little green line between my stones. Helxine is more attractive to look at than stonecrop, except that it does not flower, at least not visibly, but it is even more affectionate. Again I know that I shall be scrapping it from my beds and from under stones for the rest of my days. I tried to cover the top of the old fireplace with this busy little carpeter, but it does not care to come out in the open. Up the sides as much as you like, and everywhere else where it is damp and moist, but not where I most wanted it. Later I used creeping thymes to cover the unsightly broken wall. They like to be hot and dry, and will clamber about in the sun most obligingly.
After I had made the terraced garden I had more walls to play with than I knew what to do with. I grew aubrieta from seed, all kinds of arabis, including the double variety and shades of pink and rose, also
Arabis blepharophylla
, which one so seldom sees, but which is an excellent wall plant with its tight rosettes of deep green leaves and stiff heads of magenta flowers. One plant of
Dianthus caesius
gave me innumerable cuttings, and all the rock campanulas were used
ad infinitum.
Saxifrages were stuffed into crannies, in some places I planted gypsophila to foam over the stones, in another
Saponaria ocymoides.
The trailing
Geranium Traversii
, Pritchard’s var., is good on a high wall, as it is generous with its trails, while
Geranium sanguineum lancastiense
can be used on top of a wall or in a rock crevice.
The rough wall we made round the lawn was another place where I could grow rock plants. Rock roses and androsaces, aethionemas and shrubby thymes thrive in that wall. I grow great mounds of alyssum, more of the lemon coloured variety than the golden, here and there a small lavender or silver plant such as
Helichrysum plicatum
, and the green leaved
Dianthus multiflorus
, with its bright cerise flowers, and the salmon pink version, Emil Pare. The perennial cheiranthus and erysimums are excellent plants to choose for a wall like this, as they are mostly low growing, and sit down and spread themselves most satisfactorily. C. Harpur Crewe is better as a border plant as it makes itself into rather a big bush, and gets blown about in the wind, but
C. alpinus
Moonlight and
mutabilis
, and
Erysimum capitata
and Rufus are most obliging.
Creeping thymes soon cover flat surfaces, and
Thymus micans
works its happy way up the vertical sides of the stones. Erinus seeds itself, and its neat little rosettes covered with white, pink or crimson are most endearing. I am not superior to
Erigeron mucronatus
, with its smother of pink and white daisies over such a long period, and I love
Dryas octopetala
, with its creamy flowers and oak leaves, which just pour down in a regular cascade of foliage.
It isn’t only rock plants that grow in walls.
Campanula pyramidalis
loves to grow in a wall crevice, in fact prefers it to a bed. I have seen aloes growing happily between stones in a wall, and I think nepeta looks better in a wall than anywhere. I put it in my walls, on top of walls, at the edge of supporting walls and at the bottom of walls that rise from paving so that the haze of blue remedies the cold effect of so much stone.
Small primulas and primroses tucked in between the stones at the bottom of a wall are attractive.
P.
Wanda grown like a chain between stones is quite another plant from the bird pecked horror spaced out at regular intervals between tulips or forget-me-nots. Such little dears as Kinlough Beauty, E. R. Janes and Jill look lovely shyly peeping from under a wall, and where there are big gaps a good clump of polyanthus looks more at home than it does in a formal scheme.
Another good place for rock plants is between the mowing stones that separate the lawn from the wall border. I put large flat pieces of hamstone at the edge of the lawn with the straight edges against the grass and the irregular sides against the bed. Rock phlox and silenes are very happy between the stones, and so is the dwarf iris,
I
.
chamaeiris
, in many colours. Double
Lychnis Viscaria
is not a real rock plant but it wedges itself in between the stones and provides a vivid splash of cerise against paler flowers.
Convolvulus mauritanicus
is starred with bright blue flowers on a mat of brilliant green until November, and
Scabiosa parnassiaelolia
makes a hump of very soft green with flowers of sad, pale pink.
To induce plants to grow in an old wall the best way is to choose a damp day, then find a good crevice and scratch out as much mortar as possible. Stuff the hole with damp humus, such as well decayed manure or some compost, and see that there are no air pockets. The smaller the plant the happier it will be, because its roots should be enclosed in a ball of earth before it is pressed into the crevice. To keep the soil moist I cover the whole with damp moss, and if the weather turns warm suddenly keep it watered with a syringe. Sometimes one can wedge a stone over the crevice to keep in the moisture.
Planting in a supporting wall should be done while the wall is being built, if possible, so that the roots can be firmly planted in the soil behind. The wall should slope slightly backwards and at intervals an extra large stone should be pressed back into the soil behind to anchor the structure.
A dividing wall made without cement should be slightly narrower at the top than at the base. Great care must be taken to see that there are no air pockets and the earth must be rammed in with great perseverance at each stage. Again, a large stone, the width of the wall, should be introduced at intervals to make it stronger. A foot or a foot and a half is the best height for such a dry wall.
Some people like to make a double wall, say as a front garden boundary, and for this two narrow cemented walls are made with earth between them. Drainage is important and as well as a deep layer of clinkers at the bottom it is a good idea to put in small agricultural drains about a foot from the top. There should be gaps between the drains, and they should be surrounded with gravel. At one end there should be an inlet so that a hose can carry water through them, because plants in a double wall such as this dry out very quickly. Dwarf polyantha roses are often grown in such a wall, with trailing alpines falling down the outside of the wall. Geraniums give a long season of bloom and these again can be chosen to fall over the edge of the wall.
The only garden in front of the house was a narrow strip filling in the space made by the L of the house. When we bought the house it was a forest of rusty laurels, and the earth was so heavy and dead that even they showed no enthusiasm. High humpy beds were banked half way up the walls.
We dug out the laurels and levelled the ground and laid crazy paving. It was our first attempt at paving and it wasn’t a good job. The ground wasn’t as perfectly level as it should be for crazy paving, we left cracks between the stones which were much too wide, and we didn’t anchor the stones with joggles of concrete.
I planted everything I could between the stones but not nearly enough to deter the weeds. The uneven stones became covered with earth that was washed up, and encouraged more weeds.
Walter decided it must all come up and be freshly laid in concrete. I was to be allowed a few, but very few, holes in which to grow suitable plants but there were to be no crevices. Alas, greed was my undoing. I stood over the labourer who was doing the job and indicated which spaces I wished left. There were a lot of them and it brought my husband’s wrath down upon my head so that nearly all of them had to be filled up.
The finished garden was certainly neat, far too neat. We used blue-stone for this paving and it is a cold stone, unlike our lovely honey-coloured hamstone. When we paved the garden it was very early in our gardening life and we hadn’t realized the possibilities of ham-stone for paving.
I did what I could with the narrow beds under the walls, and planted valerian on top of the walls and colourful alpines in the walls themselves, hoping to get a little colour that way, but it remained cheerless and dull.
Luckily for me war-time materials were very poor and the concrete between the stones soon deteriorated, urged on by unofficial help from a crowbar and hammer, and by degrees I was able to sneak a few more living things into that cheerless scene.
I used all the creeping thymes I could get—
Thymus serpyllum
Annie Hall,
alba
, Pink Chintz and
coccineus
,
Thymus lanuginosus
making great grey woolly mats, and an occasional hump of
T. ericaefolius
in bronze.
The many varieties of the little iris—
I
.
chamaeiris
—are determined plants and will get the better of poor concrete, and most weeds. The Bride is white, and taller than the blue, purple and primrose shades.
Sisyrinchium Bermudiana
has dainty grass-like foliage and flowers over a long period. The yellow variety, S.
convolutum
, is slightly taller. Both of them are inveterate seeders and will appear in the tiniest crevice.
Dianthus deltoides
, the maiden pink, is good for paving as it makes a dark green mat and covers itself with dark crimson flowers over many months.
Dianthus caesius
, the lovely Cheddar pink, enjoys a home in limestones and soon spills over quite a large area.
The prostrate veronicas make good floor covering, and in addition to the more usual blue there is
V.
Mrs Holt, a delicate pink, and Silver Queen, the colour you’d expect from such a name.
V. pectinata rosea
has a most attractive foliage in woolly grey-green, with tiny pink speedwell flowers. It looks best when it reaches a good-sized carpet, and this it does in a very short time.
V. amoena
has very fine, almost threadlike foliage, and light blue speedwell flowers.