The Return of the Rockery?

When I teach plan design, I always take a few minutes to review the history of landscaping in Quebec. I present the evolution starting with the first attempts inspired by Renaissance French gardens and I slowly move up to the 1980s! For province of Quebec, the 1980s marked a great evolution and democratization of gardening. The “Floralies de Montréal” of 1980 being one of the main events contributing to this great change. It is in this particular current of history that my students discover… the rockery!

The beautiful rock garden, adorned with junipers and marigolds that are a bit too yellow and a multi-pallet of just about anything! I then draw a parallel with the alpine garden, which is the initial source of this fashion. Then, I illustrate the horticultural slippage; how we went from this… to that!

In my mind, and because I knew them all too well in my fledgling horticultural career, rockeries… are “cheesy”. When I pronounce the word, I roll my R’s like a 1950s radio newsreader: la rrrôcaille, I would say, in French. The students laugh, but afterward, they express… their admiration. Their admiration? Yes. In my students’ opinion, rockeries are beautiful! With every souvenir photo I present of those piles of stones and plants, I hear wows! and ohs! Wows? Is the rockery slowly making its comeback?

A Confirmed Interest

Intrigued, I did a quick search on the internet and it told me that there is indeed a certain excitement surrounding rockeries and rock gardens. Numerous articles and tons of videos on YouTube explain in detail how to create a successful rockery, which plants to grow in them, etc. The irony is that the majority of these articles are recent. They don’t date back to the Stone Age (I couldn’t resist the dubious pun).

So, on the media level, the coverage is total and all the information is there, just a click away.

How Can We Explain This Craze?

It seems that in horticulture, as in fashion or music, everything always comes back. It’s a question of cycles. While rockeries and alpine gardens experienced their first period of popularity towards the end of the Victorian era (end of the 19^th century), they ended up becoming very popular again in the 70s and 80s. It is therefore quite normal for the pendulum to swing back and put them once again at the top of the charts. But that’s not enough to justify such an unexpected comeback on my part. By questioning my students about their fascination with the subject, I was able to extract some very interesting motivations.

Rockeries, Friend of Biodiversity

First, the 3.0 version of rockery turns out to be a rich and diverse habitat. We see in the rockery a habitat for small animals, like toads, snakes and many insects (Note that our northern Quebec snake species are nothing near dangerous. They’re rather small and inoffensive). In this manner, the rockery is a wildlife refuge, nothing less. But it is also an impressive pool of biodiversity! Thus, in a relatively small area, we grow dozens and dozens of different plant varieties. And, to top it all off, many of these plants attract pollinating insects!

To this I would add that true rock garden and alpine plant enthusiasts grow their own plants from seed. And seed propagation is a wonderful way to stimulate genetic biodiversity! Thus, the rockery has become a space with a strong ecological bent. What a wonderful turnaround! In the 1980s, we saw the rockery as a (more or less successful) reproduction of an alpine garden. It was as if we were taking a slice of the mountain and placing it on our suburban lawn. The plants we threw in there were simply what was available at the nursery: petunias, begonias, marigolds and such.

Rockery, Friend of Small Gardens

Students also see rockeries as an opportunity to maximize their gardening potential, even in the limited spaces they have. For those with a small city yard or a very small suburban yard, the potential of rockery is tremendous. They can be implanted almost anywhere, even in the most hostile soils. They are a great solution for slopes. Mounds can be sculpted and, literally, built over asphalt yards.

The fact that small plants are grown here allows plant lovers to multiply their acquisitions and grow even more plants! Where one could plant a single enormous shrub, more than twenty alpine and rock plants can be spread.

Desert Look, Cacti and Company

Then, it’s the whole range of plants grown in the new rockery that are attracting the interest of younger gardeners. Gone are the orange marigolds and dubious and inharmonious plant combinations. The new rockery is enriched with beautiful themes, such as plants from arid or desert environments, succulents, or collections of hardy cacti interspersed with cacti to bring indoors for the winter.

We thus discover beautiful rockeries dominated by gray foliage, yuccas and a few agaves (to be brought inside for the winter). We create gardens of small ground cover plants with spring flowering, such as phlox and thyme. A small rockery becomes an excuse to collect hundreds of varieties of houseleeks (Sempervivum spp.) in the most diverse shapes and colors.

In short, the choice of plants is more carefully considered and the rockery ends up adopting a very specific theme. At last, harmony is on the menu!

The Rockery, Mountain of Creativity

And finally, I believe what inspires my students the most is the creativity that rock gardening offers. Finding rocks, choosing them. Sculpting the soil, creating more or less steep slopes, positioning the stones. Trying to create a unique and personal arrangement and, the cherry on top, choosing a theme and scavenging the plants! Better yet, growing your own plants to transplant into your rockery. Thus, the rockery becomes a kind of artwork and each student sees the possibility of self-realization through this horticultural project.

I don’t know if rockery will truly make a huge comeback. But after this little exercise on the subject, I can understand why my students are so fascinated by rockeries. As a big fan of alpine plants myself, I hope that some of them will be swept up in the rock garden movement to open up new horizons towards true alpine plants. Because here too, we thought that the passion for small mountain plants would come to an end with the passing of the old guard. But fortunately, a new wave of young alpine plant lovers has come running to keep the flame alive and breathe new life into the interest for these high-mountain treasures.