How to correctly choose plants for an alpine hill

What attracts us to the alpine slides? Its originality! After all, they are based on stones that are always not alike! They, as a rule, have solid dimensions and irregular shape. The role of stones as a landscape element is huge, but not paramount. Properly selected flowers for the Alpine slide – this is what the focus is on.

Content

• Planning a future rock garden
• Plant selection

• Popular conifers
• Deciduous plants

We create the basis of the alpine hill

Rock gardens always have a large area and height (1-3 meters). There is an opportunity to express your imagination and create something special and amazing. If you do not want to entrust this business to a gardening company, our tips will help you create your own Alpine slide.

Planning a future rock garden

The question of which plants will be able to decorate your alpine hill is rather complicated. It includes other issues. For example, how to achieve that it pleased its flowering most of the year? What colors should dominate? What size plants can be? This is only a small part of the questions that arise for gardeners creating this landscape masterpiece.

As life shows, there are no hopeless situations! We will also try to find answers to the above questions. They will allow you to choose the most suitable plants for your slide. So, we begin to think and act.!

1. First of all, let’s imagine what tones a slide should be in order to be in harmony with the general style of your site, including the buildings and other elements located on it.
2. Now draw on paper a rough plan of a rocky garden. To make it easier to imagine the color scheme, paint over individual areas with selected paints.
3. After that, we begin to choose plants for the alpine hill. We pay attention to their size and vital needs – attitude to light, the necessary composition of the soil, water consumption, etc..

Plant selection

It is important that the plants attract attention and look favorably against the background of stones. Here, preference is given to dwarf coniferous crops, which have a saturated green color almost all year round, as well as small elegant bushes, lushly blooming in spring and strewn with catchy fruits in the autumn season. Thanks to them, the rock garden acquires the necessary shape and structure. Saturated with multi-colored paints, it will delight you almost all year round. Let us dwell on this in more detail..

Popular conifers

• Juniper. It is an unpretentious plant that has the shape of a cone and dense bright green foliage.
• Dwarf spruce. They have a lot of shades – from the bright greenery of Canadian spruce to the blue color of the seaside beauty. Well tolerate lack of moisture.
• Thuja. It has the form of a bush. If it grows in a sunny place, the leaves acquire a reddish-chestnut hue..
• Cypress. The appearance of this plant is very original – a golden top and a dark green base.

Deciduous plants

Deciduous plants are harder to care for than conifers. Try to avoid species in which leaves fall. So you save yourself from the extra hassle of cleaning leaves. If you leave it, then it will not only ruin the appearance of the alpine hill, but also badly affect other flowers. Therefore, give preference to evergreen specimens, which include:

• Cotoneaster horizontal. The thick branches of this dark green shrub acquire a reddish hue by autumn. During flowering, pleases with the beauty of pink and white flowers, on the site of which red and black fruits appear in autumn.
• Iberis. These shrubs can be enjoyed throughout the season. Its white, purple and pink flowers are connected in umbrella clusters. The fruits are shaped like pods.
• Dryad. The flowering time of this small shrub is July-August. Big catchy flowers of white color are attracted to him. The original fruits look like a fluffy ball.

In order to achieve the greatest decorative effect, it is worth planting decorative cultures correctly. Bushes and conifers should be planted one at a time, placing them in different parts of the alpine hill. Between them are placed those that belong to low-growing species..

So, we figured out how to behave with relatively large plants. Now pay attention to the rest of the rock garden.

We create the basis of the alpine hill

The classic plants for her are perennial crops that cover the earth. They are also called “carpet”, creeping, stunted, rapidly growing plants. It is they who look so attractive against the background of stones and delight with their colors. Flowers for an alpine hill, photos of which you can see on the Internet, look very picturesque from early spring to late autumn. Their main representatives are the following plants:

• Clove is short-stemmed. This undersized richly flowering flower is famous for its unpretentiousness. It tolerates open sunny space. Its narrow leaves of a grayish-blue-green hue, interwoven with each other, form thick pillows over which attractive flowers flaunt.
• Alyssum is rocky. The gray-green leaves of this perennial plant very often suffer winter frosts and remain green all year round. Inflorescences panicles consist of small bright yellow flowers. Flowers require well-drained soil and plenty of sunlight..
• Younger. The flowers of this fleshy perennial plant are distinguished by a variety of shades. Flower sockets can be yellow, green, burgundy, silver, pink. Some species may change leaf color depending on the season..
• Saxifrage. For rock gardens, this plant is considered mandatory. Large colonies of outlets form dense pillows of flowers. White, pink and yellow, they have the correct shape in the form of five petals or stars. Flowering occurs from May to August..

Do not forget about bulbous and corm onion crops – snowdrops, chionodoxes, late tulips, cannons, poultry, autumn crocuses and colchicum To create a bright background, long-flowering plants are suitable. We are talking about the Atlantic poppy, Carpathian bell, etc..

Using these tips, you will create an alpine hill that will sparkle with paints from early spring until the frosts. We wish you joy and enjoy the results of your work.!