Crevice Gardening ......in defence of rock.....

[Maggi Young]

Crevice  Gardening ......in defence of rock.....

In another thread in the General Forum section " Denmark's giant crevice garden... how it was made...."
 http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=4462.0

 ....I mentioned an article from the Rock Garden Journal of 2003 written by Zdenek Zvolanek.
ZZ has  kindly given me permission to republish that article here and he will add some comments and more photos.

I will begin by this posting, where I will attach the 2003 article, broken down into four sections to allow for the Forum posting size restrictions.... they are in pdf format for easy download, to print or enlarge at will.....


 ZZ's article : Crevice Gardening - in defense of rock..... in four sections, click below to download......

[Stone Rider]

CREVICE   GARDENING

  One top American musician (trumpet player like me) told his audience in the Prague Conservatory, that very important for your progress is to listen the performance of  maximum of good players in your free time.
I think that the same is in the case of a constructor of the rock outcrop.
 He (she) must see (and study) the maximum of rock works from different stones and from different designers.
 My plan is to show  some of my designs and also the ones from another constructers to compare.

126-Rockwork in Connecticut ZZ      granite side-walls, Connecticut
 
 126  Cedicove bocni steny (Zvolánek)  basalt  side-walls,  N. Ireland

´KING OF HEARTS´in faces of layers (schist), Canada

Anchusa caespitosa and Daphne ridriguezii   small limestone side-walls, Karlik

Montreal Real             schist side-walls ,Montreal  Botanical Garden, Canada

Montreal Skalka          schist faces of layers, Montreal Botanical Garden
 

[Stone Rider]

 There is very contrasting feeling if you see an outcrop towards Side-Walls (optic illusion of one compact rock) or towards Faces of Layers (not so perfect, sometimes little bit a busy; depends on the shape and the thickness of the layers). The best Main View is towards Side-Walls.

 diabase faces of layers
 Porphyr side-walls
 porphyr faces of layers
 schist side-walls. N.Ireland
 schist side-walls , J. Papousek, Czechia
 schist faces of layers, J. Papousek, Czechia
 Limestone side-walls, KARLÍK
 Limestone faces of layers with Moltkia petraea

[mark smyth]

some of the  photos are from  N. Ireland

[Paddy Tobin]

The first photos is in N Ireland

Mark, I believe I recognise June's snowdrops? Paddy

[mark smyth]

You do

[Stone Rider]

 schist side-walls , J. Papousek, Czechia
 schist faces of layers, J. Papousek, Czechia
 

one more picture  of     schist side-walls.  J. Papousek,Czechia   

[Stone Rider]

When you concentrate your effort of an older experienced individual, you will probably build your last stony outcrop. It must be in your eyes aesthetical sculpture (if not, you have the freedom to improve it towards your own “picture”). It will be first a silent beauty but after processes of planting and replanting with lovely flowers, this dumb lovely rock would start to speak and then:  it is the classic antique story of Pygmalion in your own small theatre with long lasting happy end.

[mark smyth]

Jiri has remade his garden?! Wow!

[Stone Rider]

Now to Northern Ireland

Margaret Glynn is marvelous woman in our rock gardening circle. She perfectly organized rebuilding of small rock garden a representative of Ulster Group of the AGS in Antrim.
Antrim is Forum Hero Mark Smyth’s headquarter and place of the Ulster Show too.

The place, which the Group obtained in the large garden of the local horticultural college, was squeezed in one corner, but I tried to raise it with small stones maximally up just to be seen.
Margaret organized large trailer and I was able to select and load some suitable stones in a 200 miles distant quarry including chippings for top dressing. If you do rock work in the rain it is fine to be at a sand hill. Sand is not sticky like a soil.

I believe that many Saxifraga cultivars (from Ron MacBeath nursery) will enjoy this sandy root run and I hope that Mark Smyth can direct his powerful Canon to show you the progress there in following spring.
I did not see a picture of this wee outcrop in flower. Mark is
fiddling around his pots and ignore something important close to him.   It
is a pain not to see one of my babies growth! 

We bought also plenty plants (including dwarf rhododendrons) from one famous Irish nursery.
The Rockwork was organized as a work shop for college students (and lecturers too) together with a lecture about crevice gardening and its plants. Students did planting and topdressing of the outcrop under my conducting. Margaret also managed elegant black labels and pen with silver paint.

[Stone Rider]

Jiri has remade his garden?! Wow!

   Jiri Papousek bought a house with large garden near Prague. This is brand new construction we put together this year. The stones Jiri rescued from one new tunel around Prague

[Stone Rider]

Some of the ancient writer wrote that only one of ten women is coming from a bee.

Yes, Margaret Glynn is of honeybee origin, Maggi Young, off course, too and we must have a peek towards another woman born of the bee (the owner of two rock gardens) Joyce Carruthers.

One crevice garden in Victoria, British Columbia and one steppe garden in the Czech Karst and you must be busy honeybee (the transatlantic subspecies). Her functional (blooming) crevice garden in the Maritime climate (dry summers and wet mild winters) is good example that this growing technique is right (may be superior) when you are not present for half of every year in your garden. Here are some pictures from this Canadian artificial outcrop from crystalline metamorphic schist and Czech Karst steppe with Joyce milking her babies.

What a job to celebrate females so nicely!

 ZZ

[Stone Rider]

BACK TO NORTHERN IRELAND
After lazy morning I played hide and seek with old photographs to
decorate a tribute to June Dougherty from Ulster.She is the lady in
black.
June Dougherty (see the above Mark’s remarks about the fields of snowdrops of June) belongs to the same class of hard working females. She is running with some help an old private garden of the country estate size with lovely old ancient trees, perennial and bulb beds under rhododendrons and camellias. I made for her one large rock garden from the rare superb Irish limestone (I had not enough stones so there is seen unfinished broken top) one large raised bed covered with recycled slate pavement and a series of low outcrops from schist. But it was long time ago and I would be pleased to see progress of the plants planted there.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Now to Northern Ireland


 I hope that Mark Smyth can direct his powerful Canon to show you the progress there in following spring.
I did not see a picture of this wee outcrop in flower. Mark is
fiddling around his pots and ignore something important close to him.   It
is a pain not to see one of my babies growth! 

Mark,
This is a remark from the master himself, not to be ignored !!
With him, we will be waiting for plenty of pictures of these wonderful settings !!!! 

Zdenek,
You've moved around some pebbles.... 
All extraordinary achievements ! 
Many thanks for showing us !!

[Stone Rider]

Mark: your friends are calling to you


VERTICAL  “STRATIFICATION”

 

   It is known, that stratification of layers of mud etc. at the bottom of the ancient seas was horizontal. My first picture is very rare (Northern Maritime Alps in France) and it is example of side pressing and folding the limestone layers into whole synclinal. You can see their very steep stratification. Second picture is from old small limestone quarry (2 miles behind my diabase rock) where is seen vertical cliff formed from layers folded vertically. You can see there many bottoms of layers (beds), which I call for easy understanding the side-walls.