Oh Angie - don't you think a fine plant deserves a good setting . If the plant is valued so much surely its setting is also part of it, and alpines of all plants benefit from this. So I think Sandy might have been provocative but it's for him to say... (I am probably being a bit literal as Maggi has said elsewhere - but after all he could have used an old pair of boots like this example...)
Tim I agree to a certain point
Our neighbour had her old toilet pan planted up. Somehow I never felt it was quite right
Angie