Perhaps it s Rosa woodsii, a delicate Colorado mountain rose, or a tiny phlox found on Loveland pass. Their taller brethren live elsewhere. It s a pursuit that attracts unbridled individualists. Rather than the lush, brilliant pairings of color in a perennial garden, rock gardeners revel in the architecture of rocks and foliage. In Colorado, rock gardens provide a year-around interest in a climate that promises a brief summer.
Rock gardens are the free verse of the plant world compared to the sonnet of the formal garden.
European rock gardening first began in grottoes where rocks and plants were arranged in a naturalistic setting the perfect place for a brooding Romantic poet. Later, the asymmetry of the Japanese garden or the studied outline of a Chinese landscape painting was introduced. They re where the Oriental and Occidental influences came together in the 19 th century. In recent times, the epicenter of rock gardens has shifted to Czechoslovakia. They still are the biggest plant explorers.