What is good rock garden design?

[Lampwick]

Looking through the many posts in this excellent forum I have found little information on rock garden design. Perhaps I haven’t looked enough!

Nowadays there are very many different styles of rock gardens, and as well as the more traditional styles that have been around for many years, some of the newer styles like crevice gardening and berm gardening are now becoming popular.

Now “berm” gardening is new to me and I only became aware of it through looking at some American alpine websites.

When it is done well it looks great, but in my very humble opinion there are some awful creations that have been made; as if the rocks have been emptied from wheelbarrows, left where they have landed and then plants placed around them! I realize that in nature there can often be a landslide down a mountain and the rocks will finish up at all sorts of angles; but somehow it eventually ends up looking “natural” once the native flora has established. In cultivation these “berm” gardens need to be constructed by someone who knows what natural looks like. I hope I don’t appear churlish in mentioning this; but there are even some “professional” garden designers constructing these berms – and many look awful!

Please don’t get me wrong, if it is done well, (which I believe requires a fare degree of skill) then it looks magnificent.

What are others thoughts on this?

[Lesley Cox]

My initial thought was "Ah, it's the man with the lovely dog again." Can we have a full size picture of your beautiful spaniel please?

I guess your comments call to mind Farrer's, about dogs' graves and almond puddings. It's a shame that the art of good rock work is not more widespead. Peter Korn's name is legendry of course and we have a brilliant exponent here, Peter Salmond.

Can you post a link or two please for the sites you mentioned?

"Berm" here, generally means a manufactured raised area such as along the front of a field, to hide what's behind it from the great general public. A new prison some miles south of here for instance, has one so that we can keep it out of sight and out of mind.

[David Shaw]

Lampwick
Can you explain the term 'berm gardening' please? It is new to me.
Thanks

[David Nicholson]

David, I googled and found this

http://www.sustland.umn.edu/implement/soil_berms.html

[Carlo]

Gwen Kelaidis used to do a lecture titled "Berms for Buns"  (not to be confused with my latest lecture, "Simple Exercises for Tighter Buns"--which was a hit its first time out last week for NARGS and word is getting around........) about growing cushion plants in such a bed. It was a terrific explanation of the technique and I've got notes around here somewhere...

[David Shaw]

Yeah, David, but this doesn't seem to have much to do with rock gardens. In this case 'Berm' is an alternative word for 'bund' that I would use.

[Lesley Cox]

Well that's true David, but any port in a storm so to speak. By which I mean that if an area has been created above the surrounding flat, why not plant it, with rock garden plants or whatever you like? For those of us whose gardens are quite flat and level, anything that makes a bump in the landsacape is welcome.

[Giles]

Berm = Molehill?

[Carlo]

Actually, Gwen's recommendation, as I recall, was that the berm be built at least 3-4 feet (a meter plus) tall. The height helps immensely with drainage but has the added benefit of significantly increasing the square footage available for planting. Geometry works!

[Lampwick]

I came across this link whilst browsing the net:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aHLFIGoERqIC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=berm+rock+garden&source=web&ots=5cUz-ljw6m&sig=liyAM8MGMZ8WIZwf37TJ8UDwINI&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result

The book is ‘Rock Garden Design and Construction’ Edited by Jane McGary
In it, there is a chapter by Gwen Kelaidis who is a well respected rock gardener and former co-owner of Rocky Mountain Rare Plants, from which I have received wonderful wild collected seed in the past. 

The link above takes you straight to the chapter in question, and if you scroll down to plate 17 (page 72) it shows the berm rock garden that Gwen has created; it’s not a very clear picture and can’t be enlarged. (No doubt it can be seen clearer in the book itself!) It looks OK, but perhaps a little too much rock is used for my taste. It can be seen better in plate 18 (page 76) and looks much better, although the steep incline on the right of the berm at the back would cause much of the soil and chippings to wash down in a very heavy downpour of rain. 

Now take a look at plate 19 (page 77) !!!!!.....despite the possibility that again a heavy downpour would have a detrimental affect on the berm; it just doesn’t look right!.... In my very humble opinion of course. 
 
So that is why I started this thread. Am I behind the times and old fashioned in my views of what a rock garden should look like? I had never heard of a berm until a few days ago! I do realise and accept that we all grow alpine plants in most unnatural settings in many ways. An alpine in a pot plunged in a sandy grit in the alpine house is most unnatural setting, as are alpines in a trough. But we have grown to accept these as necessary and acceptably to achieve a greater degree of success with these plants.

Few, if any, would grow our alpine plants in regimental rows, with alternate colours/plants at do some of the beading plant brigade – with a blue lobelia and a yellow marigold, then another blue lobelia and so on.

We all have different tastes. Some can look at Damien Hirst's cow in formaldehyde and Tracy Emin’s “Unmade Bed” and embrace it as art. I am not of that ilk!

There is a family in my area who saw a rock garden on TV at the Chelsea Flower Show about five years ago, and paid a local “professional” landscape gardening company about £2,000 to build them a rock garden. It was what Farrer would refer to as a “plum pudding”, with Thyme, Sedum, a rampant Campanula, Hebe and even roses and bedding plants included by the “professionals” Needless to say, it was never like the Chelsea Flower Show rock garden.

So it appears that like me, many of you are not familiar with a “berm” rock garden.

[David Shaw]

OK, Lampwick, I see what we are talking about now. I suppose that if you wanted to give a name to a particular style of garden design 'berm' is as good as any.
My own garden is flat and I have had to construct my own 'hills' in it. I am afraid that the picture is not very clear but the front part of it is one of my 'berms'. (From front right corner towards top left corner you are seeing path, berm, path, bed). What you cannot see is a stone wall about knee high forming the back of it and running from left to right across the picture. The front right hand corner of the picture is ground level.
This is my preferred method of creating height but, as you say, we all have our own ideas - thank God.

[Ian Y]

I am very encouraged by this interest in rock garden construction as we are holding a one day workshop on using rock and constructing rock gardens at the Scottish Plant Explorers Garden in Pitlochry next year.

It will be a practical day where people can come and take part with the various methods of construction or just stand back and watch how it is done.

We will look at crevice style, boulder style and others as time and the participants dictate.

The dates are to be worked out but it will be at a weekend possibly in August.
We also plan a day of digital workshops, looking at photography through to power point, for the same weekend, one will be on Saturday and one on Sunday so people can come for one of both.

Full details will appear in the January Rock Garden and of course we will post full details on the forum.

[Linda_Foulis]

Not sure if this would the correct spot to put this in or not???  I got so much inspiration from the old forum for my plan in this yard, so I'll share what I've done to date.

I've always wanted a stone and mortar wall and in my opinion was the perfect solution for replacing the landscape tie retaining wall that was there, and leaning, in the wrong direction.  With an underground spring existing in the hill, I needed to come up with a sturdier, longer lasting solution.  I had had a couple of quotes done by local landscapers, two of them out right refused the job, due to lack of access into the yard.  So I said to myself, 'how hard could it be?'  Those words can get me in so much trouble, but I admit that I'm very proud of the work I've done so far.  And now that I'm One with mortar.....  and if I can do it...    The hardest part was hauling in all of the rocks from the front (the only access), up uneven wood steps and all the way to the back.  It was a lot of fun as well.  Maybe my attempts will help to inspire others.