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

[Katherine J]

Kata, your crevice pots are an inspiration.
I imagine they would be very heavy by the time the pot is finished. Do you place your pot before starting to add the soil and rocks?

Helen,
I can put it a few centimeters away, if I want to. But I have a strong and helpful darling husband. 

[Luc Gilgemyn]

What an immensely interesting thread this is !!!
It really rocks !!   

Thank you - Thank you - Thank you !

[Stone Rider]

JOSEF JARMILAE HALDA
 The most known foreign constructor of crevice gardens in USA is Josef Halda (the neighbour of Jaromír Grulich in Sedloňov).
He wrote monographs of the genus Primula, Daphne, Paeonia and Gentiana and he was one of the best Czech seed collectors.
Josef was the first man in human history building plenty outcrops with steep stratification (always in an angle about 45°) starting in 1970. I was his assistant with building show outcrops from granite stones keeping precisely three different angles of the rocks and their joints. I learned a lot. Josef pushed me to write articles about alpines and I platonically love his wife (top artist Jarmila).
During the Czech Conference he showed us one rock garden with his design in Orlické Hory (Eagle Mountains) where you can see action of strong frosts to the stones in the angles 45° in one picture.
This is one of more reasons that I keep vertical angle of layers, which are in this position frost resistant.
Josef stands with blue jeans in the middle of another photo but to show him better, I photographed his portrait (in the middle of the Primulaceae family) made by Jarmila Haldová.

[Katherine J]

his portrait (in the middle of the Primulaceae family) made by Jarmila Haldová.

I like it! But it seems that he also had to do with snails.

[Stone Rider]

I haven't planted my new troughs yet but before I do, I'm thinking a trip up country for some crevice-type rock would be a good idea.

you have somewhere limestone areas and this kind of rock is the best for friendly bacteria cooperation with saxatile plants. Ohoy Zdenek

[Stone Rider]

 AN ELEGANT ENDING
   Every clown must have the right sense to end his performance at the peak condition (after that great moment the vital vibrations are (by the physical laws) slowing down) and let the maximum of impression behind him.

 Thanks to the international audience to give me support, which I badly need to write something sensible in a strange foreign language (I had only Czech and Russian at school) and somehow do my best. I let behind me tons of stones and minimum of flowers so something here is out of the balance.
 Now there, in the end of the long rope for pulling the rock gardening forward, it is your own playground under sharp spade of our moderator (see Joe Halda´s skill for chopping every terror) and I must start my long journey to find some new and golden thread hidden in the distant mountains or somewhere in a deep crevasse in my mind.
One flower is here supporting my cordial thanks to the lucky owner of emerald green eyes.

[ranunculus]

AN ELEGANT ENDING
   Every clown must have the right sense to end his performance at the peak condition (after that great moment the vital vibrations are (by the physical laws) slowing down) and let the maximum of impression behind him.

Many thanks for an exceptional thread ZZ.   I took this image on Sunday - I thought it seemed quite fitting!

[Stone Rider]

AN ELEGANT ENDING
   Every clown must have the right sense to end his performance at the peak condition (after that great moment the vital vibrations are (by the physical laws) slowing down) and let the maximum of impression behind him.

Many thanks for an exceptional thread ZZ.   I took this image on Sunday - I thought it seemed quite fitting!

Yes, it is illustrating the situation of the last song.  Good day Zdenek

[Lesley Cox]

I haven't planted my new troughs yet but before I do, I'm thinking a trip up country for some crevice-type rock would be a good idea.

you have somewhere limestone areas and this kind of rock is the best for friendly bacteria cooperation with saxatile plants. Ohoy Zdenek

Thanks for that advice Zdenek. I was thinking of schist actually, approximately the same colour as my troughs and superbly lichened and weathered. There's masses of it in an area just an hour or so away from me.

On the other hand I have a collection of limestone slabs which though too big for the troughs would make a good small crevice garden somewhere nearby. I think they were originally paving stones but never used and when we moved from our previous place we brought them with us "just in case." There are about 30 I think, overgrown but retrievable and well weathered already. (They've been sitting there for 12 years.) They are approx 10cms thick and about 60-80cms square, more or less. If the garden were not to be very high, they could be broken in half and so make twice as many of them. I have some limestone troughs too, carved out of the natural stone, quarried in blocks and a lot of long limestone bricks (to the top and right of the pic below)

[Maggi Young]

ZZ tells me the snow is beginning there, but here in Aberdeen the rain just gets heavier.... the sun was only out for a few moments earlier, so it is a pleasure to be cheered bu this photo from ZZ of two great gardeners, with rock in their souls....
 Ron Beeston, (carrying the camera) and Rudi Weiss.....


 click on the photo to enlarge it, as usual.....

[Lvandelft]

ZZ tells me the snow is beginning there, but here in Aberdeen the rain just gets heavier.... the sun was only out for a few moments earlier, so it is a pleasure to be cheered bu this photo from ZZ of two great gardeners, with rock in their souls....
 Ron Beeston, (carrying the camera) and Rudi Weiss.....

With some delay, but just fitting to the picture above, here the promised pictures I made in 2006 at Pershore:

[Lvandelft]

next batch

[ranunculus]

Thanks Luit ... excellent images.

[Maggi Young]

Very timely, Luit! Thanks!

These two pix just in from Alan Furness, via ZZ!!
Two photos from Pershore crevice garden in 2007

[Diane Clement]

it is a pleasure to be cheered bu this photo from ZZ of two great gardeners, with rock in their souls....
 Ron Beeston, (carrying the camera) and Rudi Weiss.....  

I have greatly enjoyed this thread, thanks for ZZ for his dedication to the task of putting the thread together and much appreciated humour    

How nice to see the picture of Ron here, and also to see he is now the latest member of the forum - we look forward to hearing from you in person Ron