In
my work I have had the chance to create
wildflower rockeries. I have learnt that wildflower rockeries are not
to be confused with normal rockeries, alpine rockeries or alpine gardens.
'Wildflower rockeries' should
be large to allow for lots of intertwining growth or if small, then well
tended..
Small rockeries:
Enable far more species to be introduced and each plant is 'helped' to try and behave itself.
Many form attractive cushions and more are non invasive, often on a deep
no spreading tap root.
Wildflowers can also be grown as alpine rockeries where we tend to use alpine
wildflower plants, but the range is species suitable or available is
limited. If you want me to recommend a list of species suitable for
rockeries, sorry, the work is else where on this large site, I suggest you
use our 'site search' our look up the 'species data pages' for further
information. Occasionally we have rockery mixtures in stock, look the them
up in wildflower seed mixture products section.
Photo: A crevice garden
ideal for dry alpine species and well behaved wildflowers
Large '
wild rockeries' >1000 square metres: I use
many types of wild flowers, and plant them in a rockery situation to
spread and move and establish a natural succession, which if cut and
raked, as per a wild meadow is easy to manage.
At Design By Nature we have built rockeries with boulders the size of cars.
Rockeries that run into the distance stretching hundreds of metres, these we
plant with wildflowers to compliment shrubs and small trees. The best species to use
on the mammoth rockeries are plants such as Greater
Trefoil and Bush Vetch and mixtures containing seeds of Bladder Campion,
Bedstraw and Hypericum, which not only thrive in such situations but provide
'shocks' of bold colour.
For the really adventurous wildlife
gardener, Coltsfoot can be used to cover large areas and its foliage acts a good summer foil until the summer blooms takeover and the
Coltsfoot is forgotten. (NOTE: Coltsfoot is not for the faint hearted and is a rampant grower)
Occasionally we have rockery mixtures in stock,
look the them up in wildflower seed mixture products section.
On large rockeries, scatter mixtures such as MM02, or a heavy soil, or a
mixture suited to the site, as often as not builders leave clay beds and
boulders for some reason. If you have top soil, choose the finer soil mixtures MM03, MM04 where the soil is light. In areas where you must have the best show of colour go for mixtures, MM07, MM08 AND MM09 or use double sowing rates of our beautiful butterfly mix which will really liven up the wildflower rockery.
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