Wisley Crevice Garden project with Zdenek Zvolanek

[Jiri Papousek]

Pictures second attempt.

two wizards ZZ and Kaj Andersen
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[Luc Gilgemyn]

Wonderful pictures of really well grown plants Jiri !! 

[Maggi Young]

Jiri, thank you  for these pictures and  thank you for making  them.

 It is right that the world should learn the secret of the boots! 

Video from RHS about making of the crevice garden with Paul Cumbleton :
https://www.rhs.org.uk/videos/Gardens/Wisley/2011/The-Crevice-Garden

[Stone Rider]

SAND IN THE CREVICE GARDENS (THE HOME OF SMALL SAXATILE PLANTS)
 

  Today is practically impossible to buy good garden soil in Central Europe: you can get expensive peaty bark rubbish with some sand and partly composted poop (sewage sediments) packet in plastic bags. Who will plant saxatile plants in it? Acceptable substrate as John Innes no.2 (with true loam) is not in Czech Republic available and even Botanic Gardens are not able to buy 60 cubic meters of it. Sand is cheap and cheerful and Paul Cumblenton is right in the explanation why we used it in Wisley. In winter-wet countries like England sharp sand is a good insurance for alpines in this kind of killing lowland weather.
 I must give thanks to the friendly bird, Alpine parrot, who spoke today to the defence of sand in the crevice gardens and inspired all pessimistic forumists with lovely photos from his artificial black well cracked volcanic outcrop. He reminded us of the fact, that frost is not breaking roots of seedlings (like young gentians) in sand. This damage is common in frozen soil. So another support for sand...
 Plants are slowly growing in this diet life and their bodies are smaller, healthier and firmer (quick growth full of fat food is producing shorter life span; it is similar with obesity of people). There is a need to be patient in maturing our alpines! Sand is quite sterile and good for establishment of the new, small and tender colonies of symbiotic microbes, which will later help to dissolve underground walls of crevices to get food for plants. I believe in feeding plants with help of mycorrhiza in the future of rock gardening.
  In this construction the vertical fissures has the deepest known Long Toms – the narrow pots with no bottom to stop the growth. What a freedom for the root run!
 Sand under crevices is a base and everybody can take sand from the crevice and fill it with his special mixture (with reactive limestone, vermiculite, expanded clay balls etc.). We will do it during planting in March for some plants with special needs. Of course, the best substrate is Spanish River Carbonatite, which is natural alkaline volcanic substrate with all the best food for rock garden plants. Problem is to get it from Ontario in Canada. We prepared for February International Rock Gardener very good article about filling and planting narrow crevices in troughs. The author is Canadian nurseryman Harvey Wrightman, who is brave in experiments and successful with fussy plants like Eritrichium aretioides. His new ideas are ripe to try them. Well friends, rock gardening is the highest discipline in the gardening and we are all doing experiments and learning from them the craft. I wish you happy play in sand, sincerely yours     ZZ

[ranunculus]

Absolutely stunning results, Jiri ... such magnificent flowering!

[Kristl Walek]

thank you for brightening this february day, jiri.
fantastic.
i too always used sand to fill in crevices (better soil underneath) and the plants seemed quite happy.
important to top-dress, or i found that the sand washed away very easily the first season.

[ruweiss]

Jiri, your beautiful pictures bring us back memories of our visit to your
rockgardener's paradise in last may. We were flattended about these healthy,
vigorous and free-flowering plants. Thanks for the time you took for us.

[Lesley Cox]

Wonderful plants Jiri in a beautifully constructed habitat. I can imagine that all those will be happy in either cold weather or hot, whereas today I am struggling with 35C, to keep my troughs cool.

For those who have hot summer days or have young plants in a prop house which can get over-heated in such weather as today's, I learned recently from an alpine-growing friend (Louise at Hokonui Alpines) that placing polystyrene boxes over the trays will give an atmosphere 12degC LOWER than the air on the outside of the polystyrene. It works, I've been covering my newly planted troughs through this summer, as soon as the sun hits them, about lunchtime and the plants in the troughs have stayed cool, moist and turgid, green and fresh-looking, while those in the garden behind them have become shrivelled and miserable. Even with the rainy summer we've had, still it hasn't been nearly enough to keep alpines happy in the sun.

The poly boxes don't look pretty of course, but are truly life-savers so worth the unaesthetic appearance for a few hours on the very hot days. All six of these troughs have crevice-type rock work so the shades are up and down, perched on the rocks. Since it's also windy, they need holding down.

[astragalus]

Beautiful pictures, Jiri.  The plants look like they have settled in completely.  Can't wait to see this in April.

[Paul Cumbleton]

I had some more thoughts about feeding. Looking at the pictures of crevice gardens from various places, it is striking how varied they are in how tall (deep) they are built. I suspect that where they are not too deep (like for example the one at Pershore) and have good soil underneath that the roots can easily get down and benefit from the soil. So in these crevice gardens it may be that you don not need to feed. Jiri also mentioned how worms can mix this soil into the sand with further obvious effects on nutrition.

The new crevice garden at Wisley has been built quite tall - there are some points where the sand is more than 1.5 metres deep. That is a long way for roots to go before they get to the soil underneath. So this is why I think they will need a little food, especially while they are establishing. The two sand beds we have had for a while now at Wisley are about 80cm deep and I found in these that the plants simply did not grow until I gave them some food. So I guess different situations will need differing approaches

Paul

[John85]

How important is the orientation of the stones ?Is there one that gives more opportunities?

[Paul Cumbleton]

Hi John,
Our stones are orientated east -west which means there will be a variety of niches created from hot and sunny to cool and shady. This is especially so with the very varied heights we have put in places.

Cheers

Paul

[Maggi Young]

  I couldn't resist re-opening this page  to give this ink to a short video from Paddy Parmee taken today of the  Wisley Crevice Garden  https://www.facebook.com/sonygirl717/videos/vb.652323340/10153009874203341/?type=2&theater

[Maggi Young]

Michael Baron posted this  photo on FB of the crevice garden at Wisley from yesterday - the planting is looking rather good, I think.

[FiestaRed]

WOW, I really like the look of those. Never visited Wisley but seeing this has really made me want to see more.