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knautia

By Knautia

United Kingdom

We want to restock a existing rockery in the style of the 1970s with dwarf conifers but have no idea as to what plants to put with them. Can anyone remember what was in vogue then?




Answers

 

I think it was very much a case of conifers and heathers.

But if you're looking for ideas, look at the photos of user Bluespruce on GOY - his garden has lots of inspirational pictures of conifers of all sizes

25 Nov, 2011

 

Back in the 70s there were a lot of plants appearing on rockeries... Frankly neither conifers nor heathers are rockery plants really! If you live near Edinburgh visit the botanic garden and ask the advice of the team who look after the rock garden there. Certainly plants such as edelweiss, gentian, saxifrage, dianthus, lewissia, a huge array of bulbs and small shrubs were all grown in rock gardens in the 70s.

25 Nov, 2011

 

I had a very arge rockery built in the later 1970's and I see from the photos that Heathers did feature. Choose Heathers that flower in different seasons for all round colour and genuine dwarf conifers that grow 1" per year or it will soon look out of proportion. I also planted some small spring bulbs, Cerasticum (Snow in Summer) and yellow Alyssum montanum 'Luna'.

25 Nov, 2011

 

People still had 70's gardens when I was very young in the late 1980's - I seem to remember Pampas grass being popular, very large (prob 10 years old) in the middle of rockeries (!) with lots of smaller plants around and lots of sandy soil. I remember a neighbour smashing up concrete slabs to make crazy paving - I dare say it worked fine, if the fashion is for more expensive stones or slate now.

Conifer wise - Mugo pine, Juniper or any dwarf variety.

Hebe - any dwarf variety like James Stirling seems to have the colours of the 70's to me.

26 Nov, 2011

 

Not only can I remember (in my twenties in the seventies) but I also recall how frequently one saw them - it was conifers and heathers, more or less exclusively. I still have a book here bought in a charity shop ten years ago written in late seventies which tells you what plants to use - and they are all conifers and heathers!

26 Nov, 2011

 

I wouldn't have said that the heathers were on the rockeries, though. It was very common to have a heather garden on flat ground adjacent to the rockery with conifers in both the rockery and the heather garden.
I have just been looking at a couple of my older rockery books, 1969 & 1981, where they do recommend conifers but there is no mention of heathers. My own memory is of spreading plants such as aubretia, rockery pinks, thrift, saponaria and mossy saxifrages.
If you must use heathers avoid Calluna vulgaris forms as they are much too vigorous. There are/were just one or two erica varieties that stay very small, I think one was called 'Foxy' or something similar.

26 Nov, 2011

 

Perhaps it varied a bit round the country then, Bulba - here in London (south east at the time) that's what you saw, though I also recall a few bulbs in springtime in amongst.

26 Nov, 2011

 

Heather was certainly much in fashion then and gives a year round low maintenance display of colour. Crocuses look nice with them. But be warned with dwarf conifers - they do grow eventually even if labelled nana.

I don't care at all about garden fashion and have a small patch of winter flowering heathers on top of a bank, backed by some dwarf blue flowered hebe, which still has flowers on in late November. -they look really nice. It is good to see someone doing what they like rather than what everybody else is doing.

We certainly had most of those that Bulbaholic lists on our rockery at the time as well as some heathers and one dwarf conifer (four feet high after 20 or so years)

26 Nov, 2011

 

Gosh yes, heathers and conifers were very popular around here, especially on raised beds and rockeries, the proof is in my garden, interspersed with spreading rock plants and under planted with bulbs, as has been said be careful with dwarf conifers, they`ll stay small for an age but once they start to grow they can no longer be classed as dwarf, I have ones less than 4ft high bought and planted the same day as others that are now over 15ft high, all were classed as dwarf when purchased and from the same supplier, lol..

26 Nov, 2011

 

Knowing the way heathers grow naturally on the moorland and how they do not grow in alpine regions I am amazed... certainly where we are folk had lots of heather beds but they were not rockeries.

26 Nov, 2011

 

Well, now that I think about it, the 'rockeries' I remember from the seventies planted with conifers and heathers weren't really rockeries - they were beds with a few rocks here and there, often with the back part higher than the rest, but not necessarily, more of a slope, or just flat, with large rocks dotted about inbetween plants.

27 Nov, 2011

 

Ah the plum pudding approach... not recommended as a way of creating a rockery these days.

27 Nov, 2011

 

Terminology again, Bamboo. That is what I would call a 'heather bed' as distinct from a rockery.

28 Nov, 2011

 

Or a heather and conifer bed - just that everyone called them 'rockeries' back then, when I wasn't a gardener and not interested, and I've never really given it any thought. Now I realise they weren't rockeries at all...

28 Nov, 2011

 

Perhaps it all depends how steep the new rockery is - a gradual slope OK, but a steeper one not so good? Wild heather does grow on bouldery steep hillsides round here.

28 Nov, 2011

How do I say thanks?

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