How To Create An Alpine Slide

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

An alpine slide (rock garden, or even rockery) is called a rocky fantasy garden, which is a very bright and at the same time quite a kind of decorative highlight that transforms even the most modest household plot. Nevertheless, the construction of an alpine slide, even of a relatively small size, always requires a rather complex and painstaking work

Choosing a place for your rocky garden

This is the starting point in the difficult task of creating a rock garden. The most suitable and successful place, of course, will be an open, picturesque, cozy, sunny and rather spacious corner. The most optimal side for the construction of this beautiful object is definitely south-west or south. There is simply no point in building a rock garden in a far and hidden corner of the personal plot - such a picturesque place should be regularly visited. After all, the main task of the rock garden is to constantly delight the owners and the people around them, to pacify them, attracting admiring glances. After choosing a suitable place for the alpine slide, it must be marked out.

Pit excavation and drainage

At the place chosen for the construction of the alpine slide, a small pit should be dug: ideally, it should not be very shallow, but also not very deep. For example, to create a rock garden 2x2 m, it will be enough to dig a pit 0.8 - 1 m deep. And good drainage is necessary in order for the created rock garden to delight the eyes of others for as long as possible. It performs the function of a kind of foundation, preventing soil subsidence and at the same time removing excessively accumulated moisture, which can easily harm various plants. In order to create an excellent drainage effect, formed as a result of digging, the foundation pit is abundantly covered with crushed stone or a large amount of expanded clay, broken bricks, gravel or various construction waste (wood waste should be excluded from it). Further, the entire drainage should be thoroughly covered with dry sand or the so-called cocktail, consisting in equal parts of sand and fine gravel with the addition of pebbles. And 30 - 40 cm before the surface of the rock garden, a thick, dense layer of fertile soil is laid, which must be properly tamped.

Stacking stones

The dimensions of the stones selected for the rock garden should correspond to the scale of the existing site: for example, large stones are well suited for large areas, and for relatively small areas it would be best to choose flagstone and medium-sized boulders. At the same time, both the texture of the stones and their color must always be in harmony with the entire ensemble as a whole, focusing on the beauty of the vegetation near these stones. However, do not overdo it with eclecticism, you also need to try hard: nevertheless, the rock garden should look as natural as possible. For this reason, the best solution would be to limit yourself to a specific rock type: either limestone, or sandstone, granite or quarry quartzite. All stones are stacked in several tiers, while observing the principle "from large to small": the largest boulders will be appropriate at the base of the hill, while stones of smaller sizes are carefully placed on its top.

It is not bad to decorate the top with some rare and peculiar exhibit. When laying, each layer of stones should be covered with well-moistened soil. It is very important not to forget at the same time to leave between them a sufficient amount of space for the full growth of plants, as well as for their subsequent development. In the average classical rockery, you can usually observe 3 - 5 (sometimes more) picturesque tiers. And there are no special rules for the technique of laying stones at all, the size of the slide and its shape completely depend only on the originality of the taste of its creator and on the richness of his imagination. Nevertheless, it still should not look overly chaotic or, conversely, overly correct, while being stable, harmonious and as natural as possible. The rule is quite appropriate here - an alpine slide should always look great even in the complete absence of any plants.

Backfill soil

For this purpose, a special soil mixture is either bought ready-made, or such a mixture is prepared independently: 1 part of peat must be mixed with 3 parts of soil (ideally clay), then a little gravel (1 part) should be added to 5 parts of the resulting mixture. It is also very important to make sure that the entire land was initially as clean as possible, otherwise the ubiquitous weeds will constantly bother.

Planting plants

In the upper part, you first need to plant various shrubs and small trees, and only after that all kinds of perennial grasses begin to gradually be planted. Earlier, when erecting alpine slides, they tried to plant exclusively alpine plants (to be more precise, their high-mountain varieties), however, modern landscape design has not provided for such restrictions for a long time. And undersized shrubs and trees, various ground cover perennials, as well as cereals, bulbous plants, all kinds of ferns and vending herbs can easily act as the most suitable gardeners. However, the most important thing is that when planting, you should always take into account the unpretentiousness of various types of plants, as well as their compatibility with each other. At the same time, all the plants are arranged so that the created rock garden looks as attractive as possible throughout the year, and the sad wilting of plants of some species periodically replaces the colorful flowering of others.

Alpine slides at any time of the year will look elegant, spectacular and fresh, and in winter, especially if coniferous plants like mountain pine, unpretentious thuja or juniper are planted in them. An incredibly interesting effect is also given by the combination of shrubs of evergreen species (boxwood, Mahonia holly) and deciduous shrubs (for example, spirea or cotoneaster). Herbs with a healing effect will always be appropriate: for example, rosemary and thyme, sage or incense. Picturesque ferns will always help to give the rock garden a much more exotic and amazing look, an unusual and peculiar look - cereals, to make it bright and fresh in spring - bulbous plants, and more soulful - flowers: marigolds, daffodils, nasturtiums.

The place allocated for planting all kinds of plants must first be properly moistened. Having planted a flower or tree, the ground around it is always tamped, and then lightly sprinkled with small pebbles in order to avoid too rapid evaporation of moisture, as well as in order to slow down the growth of weeds. Well, so that the alpine slide does not overgrow very intensively, it is also recommended to cover the entire space around it with a small amount of pebbles. Fast-growing plants should be weeded and thinned out at least once a month.