Re: Ideas for the mediterranean rock garden

George Guthrie wrote:
> 
> >> Greetings, have recently signed on to your board and have been
> > fascinated with the intelligent discussions and fascinating subjects.

Hi George
Welcome to the Med.list, we shall look forward to sharing your ideas.
This is an old posting now, but I have been very preoccupied with
illness in the family and only just got round to it. However, I do have
one possibly useful suggestion to make on answer to your question..

> > May I ask if anybody is experimenting with "mediterranean" rock gardens
> > made up of drought tolerant creeping and cushion type plants?...many classic rock garden > > plants are from the Med--creeping thymes, dianthus, armeria caespitosa, > > the various teucriums, etc.,etc, 

Most rock garden enthusiasts would include small bulbs in their schemes
and a Med. climate offers quite a few possibilities, such as a great
collection of miniature daffodils from Spain and North Africa, plus just
about all the wild Cyclamen species (some for a shady section only, but
at least C graecum luxuriates in a sunny site), plus several of the
Galanthuses and Crocuses, a wide collection of Irises (both bulbous and
rhizomatous) and
even such common but useful species as the grape hyacinths and several
of the smaller Scillas. And the there are several small anemones such as
A blanda. I have had the greatest success with the wild form of 
A.coronaria (reputed to be the original "Rose of Sharon") which has
naturalized delightfully in a scree bed where it contrives to display
its scarlet saucesrs just at  the time the grape hyacinths  are at their
best. 

This is only touching very briefly on all the bulbous possibilities, one
can also include, for instance, a couple of timy nerines (NN. filifera
and masonorum) and several of the smaller Alliums..The list just goes on
and on, limited only by one's imagination or one's pocket. And what
makes it so attractive is that every item I have mentioned is in good
scale to the usually miniature, or at least low-growing, plants which
seem appropriate to a rockery.

Moira

-- 
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata, New Zealand, SW Pacific. 12 hours ahead of Greenwich Time
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