Troughs, planter and containers - Apart from rock gardens and alpine houses a popular way of growing alpines is in troughs or planters. I first came across this at the nursery of Joe Elliott in Gloucestershire, England. His father, Clarence Elliott, did much to popularise this form of gardening in the 1920s. At Joe's nursery he had all manner of genuine stone troughs and containers, including a saxon coffin that he had already tried for size. The advantage of growing in troughs is that the drainage can be very good and you can keep an eye on small or difficult plants. You can even cover them in winter. Plus, they look very attractive. Nowadays it hard to get such stone containers, and of course they can, literally weigh a ton. An in between idea was to take a glazed sink and cover it with "hypertufa". However you need to find a glazed sink (not common these days), cover it, hope that the hypertufa doesn't crack off (sometimes years later) and it still weighs a ton. Nowadays you can get light weight mock stone troughs, not exactly cheap but no messing about and they are, at least until filled, light weight. Over the years I've created several hypertufa troughs and now with the house I have a genuine stone one which is attached to a wall (unfortunately the drainage is wrong, it actually slopes away from the drainage hole but as it is cracked surplus water can drain a little).  

I've added an article about growing plants in troughs and other containers, it's in pdf format and can be downloaded from the Article area.

Please click on the thumbnails for the full sized pictures.

Stone trough, just after planting, Aug 2005 Trough looks sparse immediately after planting. Plants include Salix x boydi (back left), Salix reticulata (front right), Asperula daphneola (centre between rocks), a silver Saxafrage, Androsace sempervoides (back right) and Gentiana verna (front right). I had to remove a Campanula Bumblebee days after planting as two thirds disappeared overnight into a slugs stomach.	Another view of the stone trough.	Another view of the stone trough.
Hypertufa trough (note moss growing on the hypertufa) with New Zealand plants. Back left, Helichrysum plumeum, back right Ozothamnus coralloides (formerly Helichrysum), front middle a Raoulia/Leucogenes hybrid and front right Raoulia lutescens.	View of the New Zealand trough from above.	Small concrete trough planted up with several varities of sempervivum to provide year round interest in a sunny spot just outside the kitchen door.